North Korea

North Korea is universally regarded as the most hostile environment for Christians, Foley notes, so balloon launches provide one of the only ways to do mass distribution of Scripture and gospel messages inside the Hermit Kingdom. 

A new study finds that inmates in North Korea's notorious prison camps were arrested for all manner of trivial crimes, such as dancing with westerners or forgetting to call Kim Il-Sung the "great leader". The study found Christians as well, who along with family members are arrested for practicing or even admitting to their faith. 

"Based on data gathered from North Korean defectors and international human rights groups, we estimate there are approximately 30,000 Christians being held in political prison camps and about 10,000 underground believers who are in hiding throughout the country," Lim Chang Ho, a professor at Kosin University in South Korea, told CBN News. 

The North Korean refugees have been arrested in China, which is planning on deporting them back to North Korea. The refugees face almost certain imprisonment, if not execution, upon their return. The North Korean regime in the past has questioned returning refugees about their activities, including if they have attended any church services. Christianity is completely illegal in the "Hermit" Kingdom, and an estimated 30 to 70 thousand Christians in North Korea are interned in prison camps.

 "Growing up I was told by the authorities that there was no God in this world," Kim recalled. "We were ordered instead to worship Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, the leaders of the country."

Recognizing the inherent threat posed by faith to totalitarian rule and the Kim cult of personality, the DPRK regime has since its inception committed genocide against religious believers and their families.

 There are many indications of the specific intent to destroy religious groups in North Korea.  Those that confess to, or are suspected of, having met with missionaries in China or converting to Christianity are either killed or banished to concentration camps for life along with their entire families, including children, to three generations. Open Doors estimates between 50,000 and 70,000 Christians are imprisoned in North Korea’s concentration camps today.

The prisoner release in North Korea is a bittersweet event. It's good news for those who will leave, but prisoners make up the bulk of North Korea's labor force. Therefore, as prisoners are released, others will need to be arrested to fill their spots. It would not be the first time that the police are ordered to increase the number of arrests. Those arrested could easily include Christians.

Religious persecution in the country has been rife for ages and, following the death of Kim Jong-il, global Christian persecution organizations expressed grave concern that religious insecurity in the country would only get worse with the sudden and unexpected shift of power.

Christianity is banned in the closed country [North Korea] and the church has been forced underground. Christians face torture, imprisonment and even death for their faith.

Today North Korea is regarded as the worst persecutor in the world. There is an 'underground church', but it is gravely imperiled. Possession of a Bible is treated as treason because only the Kim family may be worshiped.

Yu said that on the eve of the Nobel Prize to Liu Xiaobo, the police seized and beat him until he fainted. Since then, "my situation has rapidly deteriorated." In addition to being subject to torture, "for most of the year - he says - I was deprived of my liberty and placed under surveillance."

It is estimated that up to 70,000 Christians are held in North Korea's prison camps. The North Korean regime has spent decades imprisoning, torturing, and executing believers for their faith in Jesus Christ.

"As many as 200,000 North Koreans reportedly are in prison camps, and an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 are Christians... yet, the church is growing in North Korea, with about 400,000 followers of Jesus among its 20 million people"

This is an excerpt from a letter written to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by the U.S Commission on International Religious Freedom urging the State Department to make the promotion of religious freedom a component of its diplomatic mission to North Korea. It lists many of the violations of religious liberty, including public executions, being committed against Christians and adherents of other faiths by the regime.

In practice, there is no freedom to build churches or to worship in homes. An estimated 400,000 Christians practice their faith in underground networks. Possession of a Bible or Christian material is illegal and punishable by death.

"Pretending that a handful of government-run show churches in Pyongyang constitute any kind of religious freedom does not serve fellow believers."