'Crimes against humanity': the U.N. accuses North Korea's young leader of committing atrocities against his own people.

• Author: Smith, Patricia
• Position: INTERNATIONAL

Deadly attack dogs, kidnappings, public executions, starvation, thought-control, religious persecution, and forced marriages. A new United Nations report reveals in grim detail how the North Korean government terrorizes its own people. It also declares the country's young dictator, Kim Jong Un, guilty of crimes against humanity.

"The gravity, scale, and nature of these violations reveal a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world," the report says.

With its nuclear weapons, repressive government, and a state-run economy that can't even feed its people, North Korea has long been viewed with concern by the United States. But the 408-page U.N. report--based on the testimony of North Korean escapees--adds shocking evidence of the Communist state's brutality.

"At this point, no one could dispute that North Korea has a serious human rights problem," says Richard Bush, a North Korea expert at the Brookings Institution.

North Korea's Communist state dates to the end of World War II. In 1945, the Soviet Union occupied Korea north of the 38th parallel and installed a Communist regime, while U.S. and Allied forces controlled what became South Korea. The North later tried to take over the South, and the Korean War (1950-53] followed. That conflict, in which 34,000 Americans died, ended in a stalemate, leading to two very different nations (see chart).

South Korea developed into a thriving democracy with a booming and technologically advanced economy--the 12th-largest in the world. It's long been a staunch American ally, with 28,000 U.S. troops stationed there.

North Korea, on the other hand, became one of the most repressive and isolated regimes in the world. When Kim, then about 29, inherited the dictatorship after the 2011 death of his father, Kim Jong II, there was hope that he might modernize the country and improve relations with the international community. But he's proven to be as ruthless as his father (and his grandfather before him). He's continued to test missiles and even threatened a nuclear strike against South Korea and the United States. In December, Kim ordered the execution of his uncle--his second-in-command and mentor--for allegedly plotting a coup. There were also unconfirmed reports that Kim had his uncle's entire family--including children--executed as well.

Big Brother

Under Kim's rule, North Koreans continue to live under Big Brother, George Orwell's famous depiction of a totalitarian state in which even...