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.
The Bible is reported to have been banned in North Korea and several incidents have emerged in which Christians were arrested or executed for possessing and/or selling the book, while other reports state that they have their own translated Bible.
North Korea is considered an atheist state, where it is reported that the government continues to interfere with individual's ability to practice a religion, even though the Constitution guarantees "freedom of religious beliefs." The regime reportedly continues to repress the religious activities of unauthorized ...
Christians caught with a Bible in North Korea have faced death and had their families, including children, thrown in prison for life, a new report says. North Korea offers freedom of religion to its citizens on paper but not in practice.
The practice of Christianity in Korea is marginal in North Korea, but significant in South Korea, where it revolves around two of its largest branches, Protestantism and Catholicism, accounting for 8.6 million and 5.8 million members, respectively.
The DPRK ostentatiously treats anyone of faith, but especially Christians, as hostile. Believers place loyalty to God before that of the North Korean state. Churches allow people to act and organize outside of state entities. Christianity also has ties to a world seen as almost uniformly threatening by Pyongyang.
With the fall of the Joseon in the last decades of the 19th century, Koreans largely embraced Christianity, since the monarchy itself and the intellectuals looked to Western models to modernise the country and endorsed the work of Catholic and Protestant missionaries.
China. The state-owned Amity Press is the only publisher allowed to print Bibles in China that are not for export. The quantity printed is restricted, and the sale or distribution of Bibles is limited to officially sanctioned churches, with online sales having been recently cracked down upon.
North Korea is officially an atheist state, much like many communist countries before it, BUT unlike Albania for example it has never banned religion. In fact religious freedom is very much protected by the Constitution of the DPRK.
Visa. In principle, any person is allowed to travel to North Korea; only South Koreans and journalists are routinely denied, although there have been some exceptions for journalists.
In its public pronouncements, Pyongyang has called for accelerated population growth and encouraged large families. According to one Korean American scholar who visited North Korea in the early 1980s, the country has no birth control policies; parents are encouraged to have as many as six children.
North Korea is an atheist state where public religion is discouraged. Based on estimates from the late 1990s and the 2000s, North Korea is mostly atheist and agnostic with the religious life dominated by the traditions of Korean shamanism and Chondoism.
According to a November 2020 poll by Hankook Research, 28 percent of all South Koreans are Christians: 20 percent are Protestants, and 8 percent are Catholics. (In comparison, only 1.5 percent of Japan's population is Christian; in China, 2.5 percent; in Taiwan, 3.9 percent.)
North Korea: toddler, parents jailed for life after being caught with Bible. A two-year-old North Korean was sentenced to life in prison after officials found a Bible in the toddler's parents' possession, as the totalitarian regime continued to “execute” and “torture” religious worshippers.
Otto Frederick Warmbier (December 12, 1994 – June 19, 2017) was an American college student who was imprisoned in North Korea in 2016 on a charge of subversion. In June 2017, he was released by North Korea in a vegetative state, and died soon after his parents requested his feeding tube be removed.
Over the past four decades, Christianity has grown faster in China than anywhere else in the world. Daryl Ireland, a Boston University School of Theology research assistant professor of mission, estimates that the Christian community there has grown from 1 million to 100 million.
Christianity was outlawed at the time because of the “rites controversy,” the argument over whether Christians could observe Confucian memorial ceremonies to the spirits of ancestors. In Korea the fragile Catholic community suffered bitter persecution and frequent martyr- dom through the 1870s.
According to the Religious Characteristics of States Dataset Project, in 2015 the population was 70.9 percent atheist, 11 percent Buddhist, 1.7 percent followers of other religions, and 16.5 percent unknown. UN estimates place the Christian population at between 200,000 and 400,000.
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.
In China, Bibles are allowed, but have been coming under increased scrutiny and regulation. In Saudi Arabia, it's fine to bring in a Bible if you're a foreigner—but if you do something like read it in public, or it's suspected you have any intention with speaking publicly about your faith, that could mean prison.
The Olive Tree Bible app has been removed from China's Apple Store after its creators were unable to provide a permit to distribute the app in China during a review process. It comes as part of a wider crackdown by Chinese authorities on Christian resources found online.
The Bible was sixth on the American Library Association's list of most banned or challenged books in 2015, though these were largely challenges, not full bans. The Bible has not been on the list since then. In 2022, PEN America recorded just one instance of the Bible being removed pending review in Texas.
Christians are considered a “hostile class” in the songbun system, in which people derive status from loyalty to the state and its leadership. Christians, Open Doors USA reported, are regarded as the lowest in society and are constantly “vulnerable and in danger”.
Koreans have a longstanding and immense passion for taking care of their skin. In ancient Korean culture, it was believed that outward beauty reflected the inner self; that true beauty came from having radiant skin. Since 700 B.C., Koreans have been researching, developing and documenting skincare methods.
The enduring popularity of the Kim family name can be traced back to its royal origins. Kim has its roots in two separate royal families; the Silla dynasty (57BC — 935AD) and the Gaya confederacy (42AD-562AD). When these two kingdoms united, the resulting merger led to Kim becoming one of the most popular family names.