U.S. House Passes Sweeping North Korea Sanctions Bill

Press Release

The U.S. House of Representatives today passed sweeping legislation strengthening sanctions against North Korea which included an amendment authored by Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-VA) requiring North Korea to take action to facilitate unrestricted family reunification meetings.

The bipartisan bill (H.R. 1771), cosponsored by Congressman Connolly, a senior member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, imposes the first comprehensive sanctions on the North Korea regime and those in other countries, who abet North Korea's arms smuggling, weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile development, human rights abuses and terrorism support.

"The House of Representatives is resolved to hold this Orwellian North Korean regime accountable for brutality against its people and the erratic and dangerous manner in which it conducts itself on the world stage," Connolly said on the House floor, where he managed the bill with Congressman Ed Royce (R-CA), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Connolly's family reunification amendment included in the bill makes the suspension of sanctions conditional on North Korea making significant progress in planning for unrestricted family reunification meetings, including for those individuals among the two-million strong Korean-American community who maintain family ties with relatives in North Korea. "Family reunifications between South Korean families and their loved ones behind the DMZ remain limited to fleeting reunions, at best," Connolly said.

The bill -- The North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act of 2014 -- addresses money laundering, currency counterfeiting, the violation of UN Security Council resolutions and financial restrictions, and various other offenses committed by North Korea. It also addresses human rights abuses and promotes unrestricted communications to the people of North Korea.

The legislation imposes asset freezes and seizures and visa denials on persons who materially contribute to North Korea's WMD/missile development and proliferation, as well as its human rights abuses and support for terrorism.

H.R. 1771 requires the U.S. Department of Treasury to determine if North Korea is engaged in money-laundering and, if so, it blocks any entity from access to the U.S. financial system if it conducts direct or indirect transactions with North Korean banks.

It also requires a public report identifying North Korean human rights violators and political prison camps, and it calls for a feasibility study of providing North Korean nationals with Internet communications devices that can overcome North Korean censorship.

"These sanctions are warranted, as North Korea is a reckless international actor that has amassed a litany of violations and abuses of international law," Connolly said in his floor speech. "The United States will not and cannot allow an authoritarian regime to operate with impunity and threaten our national security and the security of our allies."

Connolly said the United States and international community must not only address the aggression North Korea has projected outward. "The atrocities committed inside the borders of North Korea are equally disturbing and deserving of condemnation," he said.

"The status of human rights seems to have regressed under Kim Jong Un. A recent United Nations report recounts, in horrifying detail, the "offenses" which land individuals in labor camps, including misspelling the name of Kim Jong Il. Deplorable conditions persist in the nation's system of gulags that reports say contain 200,000 prisoners. People seeking refuge from the oppressive regime must disregard public executions used to intimidate the populace and brave a "shoot to kill' threat levied against citizens attempting to cross the border with China," Connolly said.

"Pyongyang must pay, and the lives of North Koreans must be improved. "

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