Legal framework on freedom of religion and actual application
North Korea’s 1972 constitution (revised in 2016) guarantees, under Article 68, “freedom of religious belief”. This right includes, “approval of the construction of religious buildings and the holding of religious ceremonies”; however, “Religion must not be used as a pretext for drawing in foreign forces or for harming the State or social order.”
Article 3 of the constitution states that “the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is guided in its activities by the Juche idea and the Songun idea, a world outlook centred on people, a revolutionary ideology for achieving the independence of the masses of people.” Juche stands for the ideology of self-sufficiency.
The Preamble to the Constitution enshrines Kim Il Sung’s place and that of his son and first successor in North Korea’s national mythology. “The great Comrades Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il are the sun of the nation and the lodestar of national reunification. Regarding the reunification of the country as the supreme national task, they devoted all their efforts and care for its realization. […] Under the leadership of the Workers’ Party of Korea, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Korean people will uphold the great Comrades Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il as the eternal leaders of Juche Korea, and will carry the revolutionary cause of Juche through to completion by defending and carrying forward their ideas and achievements.”
Incidents and developments
Despite constitutional protections, every single article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is, in some manner or another, denied to the people of North Korea.
In September 2022, the UN’s Special Rapporteur Elizabeth Salmón, commenting on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, stated: “Accountability for ongoing and past human rights violations in and by the DPRK remains critical to human rights improvement and ensuring justice in the DPRK.”
Assistant Secretary-General Ilze Brands Kehris said that “OHCHR’s information continues to suggest that there are reasonable grounds to believe that crimes against humanity have been committed in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and may be ongoing. We urge the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to commit to systemic reforms needed to end all human rights violations and to hold those responsible to account.” Furthermore, due to COVID-19, the number of escapees entering South Korea dropped significantly, while repatriated people continue to face harsh repercussions.
North Koreans are required to show total devotion to the ruling Kim dynasty. At the heart of North Korea’s indoctrination program are the Ten Principles for the Establishment of the One-Ideology System (the Ten Principles), which forms the life of each North Korean from early childhood. The Ten Principles dictate that the entire North Korean society should believe only in the Kim family. Any deviance or suspected disloyalty – particularly by adopting a religious belief – is punished.
North Korea’s ‘Songbun’ system – which categorises people according to their loyalty to the regime, determining access to necessities such as health care – classifies Christians as “hostile”.
As noted in a 2021 report titled Persecuting Faith by Korea Future, an NGO that monitors human rights in North Korea, “violations experienced by victims display strong similarities, including arbitrary deprivation of liberty, inclusive of the denial of fair trial rights; refoulement; and torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.” The study, which covers the period between 1997 and 2018, is based on 167 cases of human rights violations involving 91 Christians.
It is almost impossible to identify individual cases of human rights violations because very few foreigners are allowed into the country. The information gathered by international commissions and dedicated advocacy groups is therefore crucial; even so, any findings are, at best, approximations based on researchers’ ability to analyse limited information.
The Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB) published its annual report titled 2020 White Paper on Religious Freedom in North Korea. The latter documents, as of 31 July 2020, 78,798 cases of human rights violations involving about 48,822 individuals. At least 1,411 specific cases of violations of freedom of religion or belief by the authorities in North Korea were reported between 2007 and 2020. Offences included religious propaganda and activities, possession of religious materials, and contact with people engaged in religious activities.
In 2022, the Open Doors advocacy group estimated that approximately 400,000 Christians live in North Korea. If discovered “by the authorities they are deported to labor camps as political criminals or even killed on the spot, and their families will share their fate as well.”
The capital, Pyongyang, has five government-sanctioned churches (three Protestant, one Catholic, and one Orthodox), “but access to those facilities for the sake of genuine religious activity, especially by regular people, is ‘heavily restricted’.”
Folk religions and superstitious beliefs are not exempt from repression. Shamanism is still observed, but it is considered illegal. Practices are held underground and without formal organisation as practitioners can be jailed and sent to re-education and labour camps. Yet, despite the risk, North Korean officials are said to secretly consult fortune-tellers such as Lee Ye-joo, who, after his defection to South Korea stated that, “the only people who seek out fortune-tellers are those with money, like big-name officials,” who tend to want work or marriage-related advice.
In 2019, the North Korean regime launched a crackdown against Falun Gong practitioners. The spiritual movement is severely persecuted in China but has grown in North Korea thanks to North Korean migrants working across the border in China. The crackdown, adversely, attracted more interest in the Falun Gong, which is mainly spreading in Pyongyang’s underworld.
In addition to North Korea’s violations of freedom of religion and belief, it is important to consider the policy and practices of the People’s Republic of China vis-à-vis North Koreans fleeing into its territory. In violation of international humanitarian principles of non-refoulement, Beijing has a policy of forcible repatriation resulting in “serious human rights violations on repatriation.” In March 2022, approximately 1,500 North Koreans were thought to be in detention as illegal migrants and at risk of deportation from China.
North Korea is already the world’s most isolated nation; because of COVID-19, it became even more inaccessible making it extremely difficult to obtain and assess reliable and verifiable information about the scale of the pandemic in the country and its impact on religious freedom. One effect of the health crisis was the complete closure of its borders and the imposition of harsher travel restrictions.
Archbishop Emeritus Victorinus Yoon Kong-hi of Gwangju stated in his book, The Story of the North Korean Church, that the Catholic Church was vibrant before the country was divided and that today the Catholic Church is growing in the north despite ongoing persecution.
In August 2022, Pope Francis expressed interest in visiting North Korea noting that if he received an invitation he would surely go. In 2018, Kim told then South Korean President Moon Jae-in that the Pope would be “enthusiastically” welcomed, however, lately relations between the two Koreas have grown more turbulent. For his part, Pope Francis urged all Koreans to “work for peace”.
Prospects for freedom of religion
In 2018, historic talks were held between North and South Korean leaders, and between Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump. This brought some hope for a possible thawing of relations, but the prospects of an improved relationship between the two Koreas were dashed again in 2019.
Since the start of 2022, North Korea has continued to test various missiles, including 60 ballistic missiles, which has entrenched its pariah status among most world leaders.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) listed North Korea again as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC), and US sanctions were reimposed in November 2022.
Notwithstanding some overtures, the reality is that as long as Kim Jong-un’s rule continues in its current form, including the deification of the Kim dynasty, prospects for all human rights including freedom of religion or belief, are without hope.
North Korea