North Koreans who are repatriated from China and who have had contact with Christians are sent to North Korean political prisoner camps, according to the latest report on religious freedom by the pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).
Persecuted and Forgotten? A Report on Christians oppressed for their Faith 2022-24 was published this month during Red Week and is an initiative by ACN to draw attention to religious persecution around the world. The 2024 edition addresses the situation in 18 key countries, including North Korea.
North Korea is a communist nation ruled since 1948 by the Kim dynasty, and although “gauging the true number of Christians or the extent of their faith in North Korea is exceedingly difficult,” says ACN, “they are estimated to comprise around 0.38% of the population, which equates to just over 98,000 people.”
However, despite the small number of believers, Christianity is considered a threat to the state, which is why Christians are forced to go underground.
According to the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS), the entire population is forced to follow Juche, “an ideology of Marxist ‘self-reliance’ created by the country’s founder, Kim Il-Sung”.
To escape the country, North Koreans often use the extensive 880 mile border with China. If they manage to get past the tightly controlled border, the fugitives must reach a third border undetected, mostly Thailand, and seek asylum in the South Korean embassy, which will send them to South Korea.
However, those who are apprehended by the Chinese authorities are repatriated to North Korea. According to Human Rights Watch, in April the Beijing government deported some 60 North Koreans.
In its report, ACN refers to the defectors who were repatriated in October 2023 and said there is cause for concern for those “who had interacted with Christians while they were outside the country. They were all sent to political prisoner camps, known for the harsh treatment of inmates there.”
The report notes that while many served reduced sentences, “those who came into contact with Christianity” were interned “in political prisoner camps, which is in fact a life sentence without parole”.
Citing a source In North Korea who spoke anonymously for security reasons to Daily NK, the ACN report said that “North Korean state security departments base their interrogations of repatriated defectors on files provided by the Chinese police.”
“If anything related to religion is mentioned in the files, the defectors will be inexorably interned in camps” no matter what they say concerning what happened, the report notes.
The pontifical foundation states that in North Korea, “considered the worst country in the world to be a Christian,” people are classified according to their loyalty to the state and “believers are automatically considered a ‘hostile class’ and subjected to relentless persecution”.