NORTH KOREA
Legal framework on freedom of religion and actual application
The 1972 constitution (revised in 2016)[1] of North Korea – officially The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) - guarantees, under Article 68, “freedom of religious belief”. This right includes “approval of the construction of religious buildings and the holding of religious ceremonies”. However, it adds, “Religion must not be used as a pretext for drawing in foreign forces or for harming the State or social order.”
Article 3 of the constitution states that “The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is guided in its activities by the Juche idea and the Songun idea, a world outlook centred on people, a revolutionary ideology for achieving the independence of the masses of people.” Juche stands for the ideology of self-sufficiency.[2]
The preamble to the constitution enshrines Kim Il Sung’s place and that of Kim Jong II, his son and first successor in North Korea’s national mythology. “The great Comrades Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il are the sun of the nation and the lodestar of national reunification. Regarding the reunification of the country as the supreme national task, they devoted all their efforts and care to its realization. […] Under the leadership of the Workers’ Party of Korea, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Korean people will uphold the great Comrades Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il as the eternal leaders of Juche Korea, and will carry the revolutionary cause of Juche through to completion by defending and carrying forward their ideas and achievements.”[3]
On 4 December 2020, North Korea enacted the Reactionary Ideology and Culture Rejection Act – commonly known as the Anti‑Reactionary Thought Law – which criminalises access to foreign cultural content, particularly South Korean media, deemed a threat to socialist unity. The law imposes severe penalties, including long prison sentences, forced labour, or even capital punishment. Amended in August 2022 to further tighten ideological control, the law explicitly bans the possession and distribution of religious texts, including the Bible. These measures are part of a broader effort to suppress religious freedom and eliminate ideological pluralism within the country.[4]
North Korea’s Youth Education Guarantee Act, adopted by the Supreme People’s Assembly in September 2021, forms part of a broader legislative framework aimed at eradicating ideological dissent and reinforcing loyalty to the regime. Comprising five chapters and 45 articles, the Act outlines a range of prohibited behaviours for young people, explicitly banning exposure to “foreign and capitalist cultures,” unauthorised religious or non-socialist media, and even certain styles of dress or modes of expression. Violations carry harsh penalties, including sentences of forced labour ranging from five to ten years, with some infractions punishable by death, depending on their perceived gravity. The Act has been enforced with particular severity against unapproved religious activity among youth: possession of Bibles, religious recordings, or participation in spiritual practices is classified as ideological subversion and is punishable under this Act, often in conjunction with the 2020 Reactionary Thought Law.[5]
In January 2023, North Korea enacted the Pyongyang Cultural Language Protection Act. This Act defined the Pyongyang dialect as the only correct way of speaking for residents of North Korea. Individuals caught using other dialects, especially South Korean words or phrases, may face six years of hard labour, life-long labour, or even death.[6] Incidents related to the enforcement of the Pyongyang Act are mentioned in the section below.
Incidents and developments
Despite constitutional protections, every single article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is, in one way or another, denied to the people of North Korea.
North Koreans are required to show total devotion to the ruling Kim dynasty. At the heart of North Korea’s indoctrination programme are the Ten Principles for the Establishment of the One-Ideology System (the Ten Principles),[7] which shape the life of every North Korean from early childhood. The Ten Principles dictate that the entire North Korean society should believe only in the Kim family. Any deviance or suspected disloyalty – particularly by adopting a religious belief – is punished.
North Korea’s ‘Songbun’ system – which categorises people according to their origins and loyalty to the regime, determining access to necessities such as health care – classifies Christians as “hostile”.[8]
According to Open Doors International’s World Watch List 2025, North Korea has been identified as the “country where Christians are the most persecuted on earth”.[9]
Identifying individual human rights violations in North Korea is challenging due to severe restrictions on foreign access. Consequently, information collected by international commissions and advocacy groups is essential, though such findings remain approximations based on limited available data.
Based on its 2024 White Paper on Religious Freedom in North Korea, the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB) reported that 96.6 percent of its respondents said that religious activities were “not permitted”. When asked if they secretly participated in religious activities, 98.8 percent of respondents said “no”. Five percent of people surveyed said they had seen religious items such as a Bible. 64 percent of religious persecution took place for participating in “religious activities,” while almost 18 percent of persecution was a result of possessing “religious items”. Only 4.7 percent reported witnessing others participating in secret religious activities, which include not only underground Christian gatherings but also practices from other faiths such as shamanism.[10] Folk religions and superstitious beliefs are not exempt from repression. Shamanism is considered illegal and therefore practised clandestinely, without formal organisation, as practitioners can be jailed and sent to re-education and labour camps.[11]
Since 2019, the North Korean regime has also intensified its crackdown on Falun Gong practitioners. Although the spiritual movement faces severe persecution in China, it has gained traction in North Korea, particularly among North Korean migrants working across the border. Paradoxically, the crackdown has increased interest in Falun Gong, which is primarily spreading within Pyongyang’s underground networks.[12]
The capital, Pyongyang, has five government-sanctioned churches (three Protestant, one Catholic, and one Orthodox), “but access to those facilities for the sake of genuine religious activity, especially by regular people, is ‘heavily restricted’.”[13] In October 2024, a South Korean prelate said that “hope is fading” for reconciliation or reunification between North and South Korea.[14]
North Korea was already the world’s most isolated nation, but since the COVID-19 pandemic began, it has further tightened its borders and expanded state control under the guise of public health measures. According to a March 2024 Human Rights Watch report, “A Sense of Terror, Stronger than a Bullet: The Closing of North Korea 2018–2023,” the regime implemented new regulations including shoot-on-sight orders, expanded fencing, and increased guard posts, effectively stopping nearly all cross-border movement including trade and aid. Between 2020 and 2023, North Korea constructed 482 kilometres of new fencing and reinforced 260 kilometres, as confirmed by satellite imagery. This enhanced fortification has deepened the country’s isolation, severely limiting information flow and rendering monitoring of public health or repression – especially against religious minorities such as Christians – virtually impossible.[15]
In March 2023, North Korean authorities publicly condemned 10 young people for watching South Korean videos and using South Korean speech. Some sources report that the young person who was the “ringleader” was sentenced to 10 years of forced labour,[16] while others indicate that at least two received sentences of 12 years of forced labour.[17]
During the period under review, the United Nations undertook multiple multilateral initiatives to monitor, report on, and apply diplomatic pressure regarding ongoing human rights violations in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. On 4 April 2024, the UN Human Rights Council renewed the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on North Korea and commissioned a comprehensive human rights report due in September 2025. The resolution supports criminal accountability and links abuses to North Korea’s weapons program.
In June 2024, the UN Security Council held an open debate in which High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, condemned North Korea’s severe human rights abuses including repression, forced labour and restrictions on movement and expression. He highlighted laws targeting dissent and foreign media and worsening food crises, calling for international accountability and North Korea’s re-engagement with the global community.[18]
On 17 December 2024, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution expressing deep concern over North Korea’s human rights situation. The resolution calls on North Korea to respect fundamental freedoms – including of thought, conscience, religion, opinion, and expression – and demands the repeal of laws and practices that restrict these rights.[19]
Alongside the systematic violations of freedom of religion or belief within North Korea, the role of the People’s Republic of China in aggravating these abuses warrants recognition. Beijing enforces a policy of forcibly repatriating North Korean escapees. This stance reflects China’s long-standing interpretation of its 1986 repatriation agreement with North Korea and diverges from its obligations under the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, to which China is a signatory. Human rights organisations have strongly criticised this approach, asserting that it violates the principle of non-refoulement and undermines international protections against torture and persecution. The practice of forcible repatriation routinely subjects returnees to severe human rights violations, including arbitrary detention, torture, forced labour and, particularly in cases related to religious activities, execution.[20] In 2023, more than 200 defectors forcibly repatriated from China to North Korea were detained in prison camps. Those who attempted to reach South Korea or had contact with Christians while in China were immediately sent to these camps. Evidence of reading the Bible or exposure to Christian teachings typically resulted in imprisonment, often amounting to a life sentence.[21]
In January 2024, Chinese authorities reiterated their position that North Korean defectors are “economic migrants” and not refugees entitled to protection under international law. In a press briefing, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson stated that “There [are] no so-called DPRK defectors in China. People who illegally entered into China for economic reasons are not refugees.”[22] According to NK News, approximately 260 North Koreans were forcibly repatriated from Changbai County in China’s Jilin Province to North Korea in late April 2024.[23] Separately, Human Rights Watch reported that since Pyongyang sealed its northern border in early 2020, more than 670 North Koreans have been forcibly returned by Chinese authorities. This total includes more than 500 individuals repatriated on 9 October 2023, 40 on 18 September 2023, 80 on 29 August 2023, and around 50 in July 2021.[24]
China has also increased efforts to identify and deport North Korean defectors by setting police quotas and expanding border surveillance. Measures include new deportation centres, facial-recognition cameras, boat patrols, social media monitoring, and biometric data collection. More than 90 percent of North Koreans in China reportedly have their biometric information registered with the authorities.[25] In May 2024, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry reaffirmed its commitment to preventing China’s forced repatriation of North Korean defectors, following reports that Chinese authorities returned between 60 and 260 defectors in April – a practice widely condemned by human rights groups.[26]
In October 2023, UN special mandate holders urged China to cease these repatriations, highlighting the high risk of torture, inhuman or degrading treatment, and other severe abuses faced by returnees. Individuals accused of “illegal border-crossing” are criminalised, while those suspected of intending to flee to South Korea are labelled “traitors” and subjected to harsh penalties, including detention without due process, enforced disappearance, or execution.[27]
On 18 June 2024, police authorities in Liaoning Province issued directives to local stations stating that China prohibits the operation of United Nations refugee agencies and humanitarian rescue organisations within its territory. The directives warned that individuals supporting such activities would face severe penalties for “abetting violations of national sovereignty”.[28]
Prospects for freedom of religion
The North Korean regime continues to suppress all religious expression, enforcing ideological loyalty to the Kim dynasty through the Ten Principles, extensive surveillance, harsh punishments and other egregious human rights violations. Christianity and other religious affiliations are regarded as existential threats with adherents facing imprisonment, torture and execution for possessing religious materials or participating in clandestine worship, as documented by defector testimonies and human rights reports.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, repression in North Korea has intensified. Border closures and shoot-on-sight orders have further isolated the country, obstructing external monitoring and religious contact. Laws such as the Reactionary Ideology and Culture Rejection Act and the Youth Education Guarantee Act have expanded state control over movement, speech and thought, leaving no room for religious belief. Meanwhile, China’s forced repatriation of North Korean escapees, including those with religious affiliations, exposes them to severe persecution. The outlook for all human rights, including freedom of religion or belief, remains extremely bleak.
Sources
North Korea