Are North Korea’s Christians Facing Genocide? (2024)

FAQs

Are North Korea’s Christians Facing Genocide? ›

Christians are not the only group suffering from gross human rights violations that may constitute genocide in North Korea. Those who practice Shamanism, non-Christian members of the hostile class, and half-Chinese Koreans, may also face genocide.

Imprisonment. Christian Solidarity Worldwide says that there are numerous reports of people being sent to prison camps and subjected to torture and inhuman treatment because of their faith. The family members of reported Christians are also said to be targeted, including children.

In the early 21st century, however, the growth of Protestantism has slowed, perhaps due to scandals involving church leadership, fundamentalism, and conflict among various sects. Some analysts also attribute this to overly zealous missionary work.

What is the main Religion In North Korea? Officially North Korea is an atheist state, however according to most recent estimates, some religions do exist. These are the Korean religions of Shamanism and Chondoism, as well as Christianity & Buddhism.

The United States reported that North Korea mistreated prisoners of war: soldiers were beaten, tortured, starved, put to forced labor, marched to death, and summarily executed.

Persecution in North Korea

Christians in North Korea must practice their faith in secret. They can't meet together to worship or tell others about Jesus. If they are caught with a Bible, singing a hymn, or praying, they can face up to 15 years in a labor camp. Life in the camps is unbearable.

In particular, a 2021 report published by an NGO, Korea Future, stated that the authorities frequently arrested or otherwise punished family members of Christians. According to an American NGO, Open Doors USA (“ODUSA”), an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 North Korean Christians were arbitrarily detained by the state.

Classified as a “hostile class” in the songbun system, a social ranking dictated by perceived loyalty to the Kim regime, Christians have long faced severe punishments, imprisonment and execution. Proving that Christians are killed on the basis of their religion is not hard to do.

Thus, the appeal of Christianity in Korea was partly spiritual, partly economic, because of its association with Western modernity (including modern education), and also partly nationalist, because it served as an expression of Korean civil society that was not completely under Japan's control.

Statistics from censuses show that the proportion of the South Korean population self-identifying as Buddhist has grown from 2.6% in 1962 to 22.8% in 2005, while the proportion of Christians has grown from 5% in 1962 to 29.2% in 2005.

Do North Koreans know about Jesus? ›

There is no freedom of religion or belief at all in North Korea. For almost all of the past 20 years, it's been the place where Christians face the worst persecution in the world. “I know that it would be dangerous to tell anyone about Jesus.” “I know that it would be dangerous to tell anyone about Jesus,” says Ji Ho.

UN estimates place the Christian population at between 200,000 and 400,000. The Center for the Study of Global Christianity estimates there are 100,000 Christians, and ODUSA estimates the country has 400,000 Christians.

Christianity in China is governed by several sets of rules.

Christians are allowed to worship in “official churches” registered with supervisory government agencies responsible for Protestantism and Catholicism. However, many Christians refuse this oversight and worship in underground churches.

Murder. Many people in North Korea are stricken with poverty and as a result, often resort to extreme measures in order to survive. Several defectors have reported hearing rumours that murder and cannibalism is rife in the country; these rumours first arose during the Great Famine of 1994 to 1998.

North Korea has strict laws about what you can bring into the country. It's illegal to bring in religious, p*rnographic or political items.

North Korean refugees who flee to China are often later forcibly repatriated back to North Korea by authorities, and are routinely beaten and sent to prison camps after repatriation. This is because the North Korean government treats emigrants from the country as defectors.

Much of the persecution of Christians in recent times is perpetrated by non-state actors which are labelled "entities of particular concern" by the US State Department, including the Islamist groups Boko Haram in Nigeria, the Houthi movement in Yemen, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – Khorasan Province in ...

Whilst missionaries in North Korea from any religion are for all intents banned within the republic, that is not to say that they do not, or indeed have not existed over time. Their current status and indeed that of missionaries within the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) is indeed a controversial one.

The Catholic Church in North Korea retains a community of several hundred adherents who practice under the supervision of the state-established Korean Catholic Association (KCA) rather than the Roman Catholic hierarchy. The dioceses of the Church have remained vacant since Christian persecutions in the late 1940s.

There are many reasons behind the persecution of Christianity today.. Sometimes, religion may be tied to ethnic or cultural identity. In other places, governments that thrive on power view Jesus as competition and those who follow Him as threats to their control.