The U.S. State Department spoke out against North Korean human rights abuses on Wednesday, condemning the country's political prison camps as well as recent "shoot-to-kill" orders that purportedly protect its borders from COVID-19.

"We stand with the millions of North Koreans who continue to have their dignity and human rights violated with one of the most repressive and totalitarian states in the world," State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said in a press release. "We are appalled by the increasingly draconian shoot-to-kill orders at the North Korea-China border to tighten control of its people under the guise of fighting COVID-19. The civilized world has no place for such brutality."