North Korea may soon be facing charges of crimes against humanity

A United Nations human rights official, Navi Pillay, is requesting an international investigation into crimes against humanity in North Korea. This includes torture, political executions, rape and slave labor.

North Korea has just made news by announcing intentions of strengthening their defenses, “Citing U.S. hostility, Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry said in a memorandum that North Korea will "continue to strengthen its deterrence against all forms of war,” according to The Detroit News. Pillay, a former judge at the International Criminal Court of The Hague, supports the investigation due to the mistreatment of approximately 200,000 individuals within North Korea’s network of political prison camps. Located in the North Korea political prisons is prisoner Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American tour guide who was detained last year. Reuters posted that recently, the former New Mexico Governor, Bill Richardson, and Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt have arrived in North Korea, hoping to initiate a release of the American. The reports came from “ex-inmates and defectors,” according to the Guardian. Political prison camps have expanded tremendously over the past ten years. A little over a year ago, Amnesty International had received reports suggesting the “Korean government has purged possibly hundreds of officials deemed to be a threat to Kim Jong-un’s succession, by having them executed or sent to political prison camps.”