According to the testimonies of thousands of defectors, religious activism in North Korea is severely punished.
The Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB), an organization investigating human rights in North Korea, published its 2016 White Paper on Religious Freedom in North Korea on November 10. NKDB has been publishing its annual white paper on the subject since 2008.
According to a survey of 11,730 defectors, 298 (2.8%) of the 10,689 respondents in total answered that they received a sentence of forced labor for religious activities, considered the weakest form of punishment. In addition, 1,217 respondents (11.4%) reported that they were sent to a correctional camp (prison) for the same charge, while 5,539 (51.8%) answered that they were sent to a political prison camp, a more severe form of punishment in North Korea.
An overwhelming 99.6% of the respondents (11,069 people) answered that they were not permitted to freely engage in religious activities in North Korea.
Religious persecution in North Korea is known to have begun before the Korean War. The regime began to classify organized religious groups including members of the Chondogyo religion, Christians, and Buddhists as ‘hostile’ from the late 1950s, and began a campaign of suppression and persecution. Religious activists were deported to farms or mines located deep in the mountains and sentenced to forced labor under harsh conditions.
The United Nation’s Commission of Inquiry also sought to address religious persecution in North Korea, stating that in practice the regime permits no other religion except for worship of the Kim family.
Defectors have provided consistent testimony stating freedom of religion is likely impossible in North Korea as long as the “Ten Principles for the Establishment of a Monolithic Ideological System” exists. The Ten Principles represent an enforced ideology ruling over every aspect of life for the North Korean people.
Kim Myung Hun (alias, aged 37), who defected in 2013, stated, “In North Korea, there are the Ten Principles for the Establishment of a Monolithic Ideological System. The fourth of which stipulates that ‘[We] must make the Great Leader comrade Kim Il Sung’s revolutionary ideology our faith and make his instructions our creed.’ This effectively means that in North Korea, no divine figure can be accepted other than Kim Il Sung.”
NKDB has focused on conducting surveys and interviews with North Koreans who have defected after 2007, providing relatively recent insights into human rights violations and freedom of religion in North Korea.
