Kim Jong-un as god: Religious Persecution

 Among several disconcerting and intolerable acts committed against human rights in North Korea, one of the most shocking to me, personally, is the situation of religious rights in the DPRK. (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) As someone who has long advocated and fought for freedom of religious belief and practice in my own scholastic, social, and working life, (and in the lives of others) I recognize the pain and suffering these religious groups are going through in NK. I sympathise with these religious groups to the point of being personally moved and upset by their struggles. There are many accounts and testimonies told (in majority) by Christian churches in the USA, but those are at risk if biases, so I decided to take a more political point of view and I found an official Policy Forum, documenting the circumstances.

It said: "Freedom of thought, conscience, religion, and belief remains essentially non-existent in North Korea, where the government severely represses public and private religious activities and has a policy of actively discriminating against religious believers. Despite the regime’s tight grip on information about conditions inside the country, there is a growing body of consistent reports from refugees that officials have arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and sometimes executed North Koreans who were found to have ties with overseas Christian Evangelical groups operating outside the country, as well as those who engaged in such unauthorized religious activities as public religious expression and persuasion. There is no evidence that religious freedom conditions have improved in the past year."

As someone who has grown up in an environment where I have always been free, and even encouraged to practice my beliefs and be different without oppression, I am beginning to realize how privileged I really am to live in the country I do. My heart goes out to the persecuted in NK.

Another source on the persecution of North Korean religious groups can be found below. It was funded by a church in the USA, so it is at risk of being biased. Nevertheless, it is a remarkable account of personal testimonies of a particular religious group that has been persecuted in ways that are not acceptable, no matter what social group you belong to. The second video illustrates the fact that North Korea is #1 on the World Watch List for persecution of Christians.