DAVID ADAMS reports on a new report from religious freedom advocacy Christian Solidarity Worldwide calling for urgent action on human rights violations in North Korea…
Two years after a United Nations Commission of Inquiry report exposed “widespread and grave” human rights violations in North Korea and called for matters to be referred to the International Criminal Court, UK-based religious freedom advocacy, Christian Solidarity Worldwide, says little has changed in the so-called “hermit kingdom”.
In a report released last week, CSW says that recent information shows that the situation with regard to human rights in the nation – widely agreed to be the hardest nation in the world to be a Christian – remains the same, citing a recent report from the outgoing UN special rapporteur Marzuki Darusman in which he said that crimes against humanity are continuing.
PERSECUTED: The report cites information which says that up to 45 per cent of people held in detention camps – where conditions are “extremely harsh” – are Christians. PICTURE: www.freeimages.com
“On the ground, very little [has changed]. Although one could say that, if anything, the situation has worsened under Kim Jong-un.”
– Benedict Rogers, CSW’s East Asia team leader
Benedict Rogers, among those who contributed to the latest CSW report and the organisation’s East Asia team leader, reaffirmed that view to Sight.
“On the ground, very little [has changed],” he said via email. “Although one could say that, if anything, the situation has worsened under Kim Jong-un.”
The CSW report, Total Denial: Violations of Freedom of Religion or Belief in North Korea, follows another released in 2007 in which the organisation urged the establishment of the COI. Based solely on information from secondary sources, in particular people who have escaped the country, thanks to the lack of access by investigators to North Korea, it found Christianity remains identified by the North Korean regime as a “dangerous security threat and a tool of ‘foreign intervention’”.
“It is seen as a means of conducting espionage and gathering intelligence by South Korean and American intelligence agencies,” the report says. It quotes a former North Korean security agent as saying that “[Christianity] is so persecuted because basically, it is related to the United States…and is considered spying. Since Americans conveyed Christianity and since they are the ones who attempted to invade our country, those who are Christians are spies. Spies are executed.’ “
While the report says figures cited by the North Korean regime in 2001 that there were 38,000 religious believers in the nation – including 10,000 Protestants and 3,000 Catholics – is the still country’s official position on numbers, it says the “real number of religious believers is understood to be higher” and cites one organisation’s estimate of 200,000 to 300,000 Christians in the country based on research which found as many as 45 per cent of those in detention camps are Christians.
The government officially recognises the existence of 121 religious facilities on the country, more than half of which are Buddhist temples but which also include three Protestant churches, a Catholic cathedral and a Russian Orthodox Church.
But the report says that “[a]lthough the buildings and religious services appear to suggest some degree of freedom of religion or belief, that freedom is extremely limited and may be aimed primarily at visitors and foreigners”. “All the churches are found in Pyongyang and there is no record of church buildings existing anywhere else,” it says.
The regime also claims there are 500 unofficial or house churches but the COI report said the participants in these churches were individuals whose families had been Christians before 1950 and that they were only allowed to gather without leaders or religious materials.
The most recent CSW report, however, adds that, spurred on by the influence of defectors who were exposed to the Christian faith in China before being returned to North Korea, unofficial Christian activities in the nation have been increasing in recent years – a fact which has led to the North Korean regime undertaking “clandestine activities, both domestically and abroad, to discover new Christians and prevent the spread of Christianity”.
“Documented incidents against Christians include being hung on a cross over a fire, crushed under a steamroller, herded off bridges, and trampled underfoot.”
– From the CSW report
Mr Rogers says that thanks to the difficulty in obtaining accurate statistics on the growth in the number of Christians in North Korea, “I am not sure we can say for certain how much growth there is”.
“But we find that in most places where there is persecution, the church grows – perhaps with the exception of parts of the Middle East where there is a campaign for all-out eradication of the church. Christians under persecution find their faith strengthened.”
The CSW report says that due to the hostility they face, Christians in North Korea have to undertake their religious activities in secret, noting that meeting in groups was dangerous and that those discovered to possess religious items or conducting unsanctioned religious activities are detained and usually taken to prison camps.
There they face “extremely harsh” conditions and, given they are never allowed to leave, have a “close to zero” survival rate. Human rights abuses in the camps include extra-judicial killings, forced labour, torture, rape and sexual violence and persecution.
“Documented incidents against Christians include being hung on a cross over a fire, crushed under a steamroller, herded off bridges, and trampled underfoot,” the report says.
It concludes that the violations of freedom of religion or belief in North Korea remain “among the very worst in the world” and notes that while both the UN Human Rights Council and the General Assembly adopted resolutions welcoming the COI report and endorsing its findings and recommendations, with the exception of the establishment of the UN field office in Seoul, “few of the COI’s recommendations have been implemented”.
“This must change,” the report’s authors say. “Work must be done to build support for a Security Council referral of a case against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the International Criminal Court; or, failing that, an alternative justice mechanism. Action to end the crimes against humanity in North Korea is long overdue.”
Mr Rogers agrees there is a growing need for a greater response from the international community. “I think it is urgent that active thought be given to how to hold the regime to account, either through a referral to the International Criminal Court or, if that is not possible, through other alternative mechanisms.”
