(By Jardine Malado, The Christian Times.) North Korean defectors have stated that most Christians who are caught practicing religion do not survive the punishments carried out by the Communist regime.
The Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB) has identified 65,282 cases of religious persecution through its interviews with defectors who came to South Korea after 2007, UPI reported.
More than 99 percent of the 11,730 defectors interviewed by NKDB have attested that there is no religious freedom in North Korea. Ninety-eight percent have confirmed that there are no publicly accessible religious establishments outside of Pyongyang.
(Photos by Uri Tours — uritours.com — CC BY-SA 2.0). According to Wikipedia, Chilgol Church is one of the two Protestant churches in North Korea and is located on Kwangbok Street, Kwangbok in west Pyongyang. It is dedicated to Kang Pan-sok, who was a Presbyterian deaconess and the mother of Kim Il-sung.
The testimonies corroborate the September report from Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), which stated that the four churches in the nation’s capital are only meant as showcases for foreign tourists.
The South Korean non-profit organization noted that 1,040 North Koreans in 1,247 cases were victims of state-sanctioned human rights abuses.
Only 1.2 percent were reported to have engaged in secret religious activities. More than 10 percent of the religious practitioners identified as Buddhist. The others were either Roman Catholics of Protestants.
The testimonies of the defectors indicated that less than 23 percent of victims of religious persecution survive their punishment. Roughly 18 percent of those who were apprehended have died under the hands of the state while 80 percent are missing.
Read the report from Christian Solidarity Worldwide — Total Denial: Violations of Freedom of Religion or Belief in North Korea