According to a report from a Chinese newspaper with ties to the Communist Party, (warning, the following details are extremely gruesome), North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had his own uncle executed by having him eaten by a pack of hungry dogs. Jang Song Thaek had largely been considered the second in command of the reclusive country, until he was found guilty of charges including attempting to overthrow the government, gambling, drug use and womanizing. Though, according to some reports, he got into a business dispute with his nephew before he was executed. The Chinese newspaper said that Jang and five of his aids were stripped naked and thrown into a cage of more than 100 hunting hounds, who had been starved for nearly a week. The horrific execution was said to have been witnessed by 300 fellow government officials.
Though the report is certainly plausible, as this article notes, there are also some reasons to question it; China may be attempting to undermine Kim by perpetuating the story, as tensions between the nations have recently intensified. Many North Korea experts worry about the erratic behavior of the country’s young leader, and the brutal tactics used to enforce regime loyalty. Amnesty International says that currently, hundreds of thousands of North Korean citizens are imprisoned in gulags and are frequently subjected to torture, executions and starvation …
UPDATE: So it looks like execution-via-hungry dogs story is most likely fake, and may have even been spawned by a Twitter joke. However, Jang Song Thaek was actually executed (though, probably by a more conventional method), and Kim Jong Un is still a ruthless dictator who is responsible for imprisoning, torturing, executing and starving thousands of his own citizens.
