Kim Jong-Un will receive a peace prize from the Indonesian organization the Sukarno Education Foundation in September for his "peace, justice and humanity."
Foundation head Rachmawati Sukarnoputri defended the move, brushing off charges of North Korea's well-documented human rights abuses as "Western propaganda,"
AFP reported via The Jakarta Post.
"The allegations about human rights abuses are untrue," Sukarnoputri said. "That's all just Western propaganda. Those Western governments like to put ugly labels on North Korea."
Sukarno Education Foundation, which has given peace awards to Mahatma Gandhi and Aung San Suu Kyi in the past, will be recognizing Kim for "his fight against neo-colonialist imperialism."
The news agency said that Sukarnoputri's father, Indonesia's first president, Sukarno, built ties with North Korea back in the 1950s and also honored Kim's grandfather Kim Il Sung in 2001.
"So this will be a sequel, where we give the award to Kim Jong Un for his persistence in fighting neocolonialism," Sukarnoputri
told the Jakarta Globe. "We will give the award to President Kim Jong Un because he has been consistent in carrying out the ideals of the great leader, Kim Il Sung, which is to fight imperialism."
In January,
Human Rights Watch charged in its 2015 World Report that Kim Jong-Un and North Korea routinely denied basic freedoms in the country, operates a network of political prisons and forced labor camps where those opposed to the government often die.
"Kim Jong-Un's power is built on the continued abuses inflicted on the North Korean people because he sits at the helm of a central government apparatus that uses public executions, extensive political prison camps, and brutal forced labor to maintain control," Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch wrote.
"What's changed is the international community has now finally recognized the need to bring him before an international tribunal to address those unspeakable crimes," Robertson added.
The Jakarta Globe questioned Kim's credentials for the award.
"It is unclear how Kim Jong Un, whose saber-rattling and bellicose policies have exacerbated already strained and frosty ties with South Korea, Japan and the United States, has contributed in any way to world peace or compares even remotely with the above democracy icons," wrote Markus Junianto Sihaloho of the Jakarta Globe.
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