A two-year-old child and the entire family are serving life sentence in North Korea after its government discovered Bible in their possession, according to International Religious Freedom Report.
The entire family, including a two-year-old, was sentenced to life in a political prison camp in 2009.
The US State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report 2022 stated this and documented the regime’s crackdown on people having religious beliefs.
A document released by a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) estimated that between 50,000 and 70,000 North Korean citizens under the Kim Jong-un regime have been imprisoned for ‘being Christians.’
Christians who have been imprisoned in these camps have described dire conditions and various forms of physical mistreatment.
The report stated that the Ministry of State Security was responsible for 90% of documented human rights abuses against both Shamanic adherents and Christians.
The State Department, citing a report by Korea Future, a non-profit organisation “working to accelerate justice and support accountability” in North Korea, says the North Korean government persecutes individuals who engage in religious practices, possess religious items, have contact with religious persons, or share religious beliefs.
‘‘Individuals who are persecuted may be arrested, detained, forced to work, tortured, denied a fair trial, deported, denied the right to life, or subjected to sexual violence.’’
In December 2021, Korea Future released a report that documented the abuse of religious freedom against women in North Korea.
The report was based on interviews with 151 Christian women who had experienced abuse. The report found that the most common forms of abuse were arbitrary detention, torture, deportation, forced labor, and sexual violence.
Several other cases of North Koreans being killed for being Christian were also included in the report, including the firing squad execution of a woman and her grandchild in 2011.
Other believers faced “pigeon torture”, where they were suspended with their hands tied behind their backs, unable to sit or stand for days on end.
One victim said: “It was the most painful of all tortures.
“It was so painful I felt it was better to die.”
Some were tortured with sleep deprivation including one woman in solitary confinement who was driven to suicide in 2020 after prison guards refused to let her sleep.
Another NGO, Korea Future, said children were taught in school about the “evil deeds” of Christian missionaries, including rape, blood sucking, organ harvesting, murder, and espionage”.
The report said: “One defector told Korea Future the government published graphic novels in which Christians coaxed children into churches and took them to the basement to draw their blood.”
