Sunday, March 12, 2006

North Korea View on Religion

Religious freedom is essentially absent in North Korea, where the government severely represses public and private religious activities.

In recent years, the government has formed several religious organizations that it controls for the purpose of severely restricting religious activities in the country. For example, the Korean Buddhist Federation prohibits Buddhist monks from worshiping at "official" North Korean temples.

Most of the remaining temples that have escaped government destruction since the Korean War are regarded as cultural relics rather than religious sites.

Similarly, the Korean Christian Federation restricts Christian activities [which begun with] wholesale destruction of over 1,500 churches during Kim Il Sung's reign (1948-1994).

[Excerpts from The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)]

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