North Korea Portrays Christians as Blood Sucking Monsters, Murderers and Spies to Deter Faith
09-23-2021
Jennifer Wishon
It's no secret the North Korean re
It's no secret the North Korean regime has no tolerance for religion, but a recent report by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) details how the Workers Party of Korea led by Kim Jong Un targets and tortures Christians and other people of faith while going to great lengths to conceal its crimes.
The report spells out the acts of terror committed by the regime "designed to remove all traces of Christianity" and reveals "the campaign to exterminate all Christian adherents and institutions...has been brutally effective."
North Korea's secret police, the Ministry of State Security, are incentivized with promotions when they apprehend Christians and other believers.
"Those charged with Christianity often face execution or are forced to live out the rest of their lives in political prison camps," testified Inje Hwang, an investigator with Korea Future Initiative, during a webinar hosted by USCIRF.
Hwang interviews North Korean defectors who have experienced or have first-hand knowledge of abuse.
"One victim was arrested for the possession of a Bible was detained in solitary confinement and beaten with a metal rod used for cleaning rifles," he recalled.
Christians are the most persecuted because of the faith's association with the U.S. and Europe.
Undercover government spies search for any evidence of worship making it impossible for Korean Christians to congregate without being reported.
"All the Christians that we interviewed for this report told us that they dared not practice their religion in front of any other people," recalled Hwang.
Even children are taught from a young age to be suspicious of Christianity.
"In schools, young children are taught that Christian missionaries are spies of the countries who seek opportunities to invade North Korea and they're shown graphic images of missionaries sucking the blood of children to show how malicious they are," said Suyeon Yoo, co-director of Korea Future Initiative. "And they are taken to state-run exhibition halls where religious adherents are presented as murderers, spies, and where Bibles are displayed as trophies taken from enemies of the state."
The big question: what can be done to deter these atrocities in a country so closed off from the world?
Some experts say targeted sanctions are effective because Kim Jong Un cares what the world thinks of his regime.
A fact demonstrated by "show churches" set up by the government to feign tolerance to the outside world along with efforts to cover up persecution.
"There is a reason they go to incredible lengths to conceal political prison camps," noted James Burt, chief strategy officer of the Korea Future Initiative. "There is a reason they have built show churches, show temples, and have actors pretend to be congregations when foreign visitors visit Pyongyang. There's a reason they respond so aggressively to human rights council resolutions that condemn their human rights record more broadly and there's a reason they push back so hard against human rights sanctions."
This is why they go to incredible lengths to conceal ... the reason why they push back against targeted sanctions," Burt said.
Meanwhile, North Korean Christians and others continue to suffer and inspire.
"You know it says something about the power of faith that in the face of that kind of just egregious, ongoing systematic persecution of people for their religious beliefs - people still choose to believe," said USCIRF Commissioner Fred Davie.
Davie said the world should know the USCIRF is painstakingly documenting these abuses and the persecuted are not forgotten.===
North Korean Religious Freedom Database
The North Korean Religious Freedom Database documents and preserves evidence of religious freedom violations and the identities of individual victims, perpetrators, and state organisations across North Korea
Timeframe: 2019 - ongoing
Overview
Our project documents and preserves detailed evidence of violations of the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion in North Korea to inform policy and further justice and accountability efforts.
The project investigates five key areas, namely:
Violations of international human rights law and the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion;
The identities of individual victims who experience violations of the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion;
The identities of individual perpetrators who commit violations of the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion;
Organisational structures of state organisations that are responsible for violations of the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, including information that assists in identifying the extent of responsibility attributable to high-ranking officials;
Sites and locations of violations of the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.
Background
Arising from a critical need to establish evidence of violations of the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion and to make the resulting information available to global actors pursuing justice and accountability, we have been amassing evidence of religious freedom violations in North Korea since 2019. To date, we have interviewed over 200 survivors, witnesses, and perpetrators of religious freedom violations. We have identified hundreds of victims and perpetrators and located numerous sites of violations and the responsible state organisations. Particular attention has been given to documenting the forms of sanctions imposed upon religious adherents, including arbitrary arrest and detention; torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment; and denial of the right to life.
We will release a new report, ‘Persecuting Faith: Documenting religious freedom violations in North Korea (Volume 2)’, and an annual update to our North Korean Religious Freedom Database in October 2021. The database, which is freely accessible in both Korean and English languages, makes available large volumes of data to assist organisations monitoring and documenting religious freedom violations in North Korea.
Enter the database
Featured publications
Persecuting Faith: Documenting religious freedom violations in North Korea. (Volume 1)
This report presents new evidence of violations of the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion in North Korea. It establishes responsible state organisations and the institutional reasoning within which religious freedom violations are perpetrated, and it draws from evidence of 273 victims to explain how adherents of both Christianity and Shamanism have been subjected to egregious and systematic violations between 1990-2019.
Download (English)
Download (Korean)
Organized Persecution: Documenting Religious Freedom Violations in North Korea
This report was written by Korea Future for the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent, bipartisan United States federal government commission that monitors the universal right to freedom of religion or belief abroad. The report documents the organisational structure and the associated methods of directing religious freedom violations before assessing specific forms of violations widely experienced by religious and belief adherents, namely: arbitrary deprivation of liberty; denial of fair trial rights; torture; and the denial of religious freedom.
Download (English)
Our model
Investigation
Our investigation process concentrates on primary interviews with survivors, witnesses, and perpetrators of human rights violations; the collection of digital and physical materials associated with or created by perpetrators and state organisations; and collaborations with diaspora partners.
Analysis
We carry out rigorous analyses of our evidence that are guided by international human rights law and norms. This stage places an emphasis on the identification of human rights violations, victims, and perpetrators, and the extent of responsibility attributable to government officials and entities.
Preservation
We archive and digitise our evidence using a secure open-source database application. Entries into this database are categorised, cross-referenced, and assigned relationships with existing evidence to establish and uncover wider patterns in our data.
Assistance
We provide information and evidence to global actors in support of their work to deliver justice and accountability. Significant volumes of information are made publicly available through our database to support other actors working on accountability, justice, and human rights.
Project updates
Event: USCIRF Conversation: New Report on Religious Freedom Violations in North Korea
Aug 10, 2021Read More →
Event: Transitional Justice without Transition: Lessons Learned from Syria for North Korea
Aug 10, 2021Read More →
Korea Future cited in the final report of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea Inquiry
Jul 26, 2021Read More →
Partners
We work closely with HURIDOCS to create, build, and maintain the North Korean Religious Freedom Database. HURIDOCS is an NGO that helps human rights groups gather, organise, and use information to create positive change in the world.
We work with the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent, bipartisan United States federal government commission, to support their work documenting violations of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion in North Korea.
Thank you for your interest
If you find this project useful, please consider making a small donation. Your support enables us to keep producing this work.
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