U.S. report: North Korea tortures, executes religious believers – By Thomas Maresca (UPI) / Aug 18 2021
Aug. 18 (UPI) — North Korea enforces “the absolute denial of religious belief” through methods including torture and execution, a new report from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said.
The North Korean government poses “an acute challenge to its citizens’ enjoyment of their right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion, or belief,” said the report, which was released Wednesday. “Violations of this right in North Korea are ongoing, egregious, and systematic.”
USCIRF is a bipartisan government commission created in 1998 to monitor the right to freedom of religion or belief abroad.
Based on interviews with North Korean defectors, the report documents 68 cases of prosecution against Christians and adherents of Korean shamanism, the two religions that are still practiced in the country.
