Report: North Korea Continues to Punish Religious Practice

By Yonhap News Agency   

Tourists use binoculars to see North Korea from the Goseong Unification Observatory in the the demilitarized zone in Gangwon-do, South Korea. File Photo by Keizo Mori/UPI | License Photo

SEOUL, South Korea, (UPI) -- The North Korean government continued to punish those engaging in religious practices last year, with executions, torture and other abuse, the U.S. State Department said in an annual report Tuesday.

In the 2016 Annual Report on International Religious Freedom, the department reconfirmed human rights abuses the North has long been accused of, including its denial of the right to religious freedom.

"The government continued to deal harshly with those who engaged in almost any religious practices through executions, torture, beatings, and arrests," the report said. "An estimated 80,000 to 120,000 political prisoners, some imprisoned for religious reasons, were believed to be held in the political prison camp system in remote areas under horrific conditions."

Last year's report pointedly said the exercise of religious freedom continued to be nearly "nonexistent" in North Korea. But that word was dropped this year.

The report comes as tensions run high between Washington and Pyongyang over the communist regime's missile and nuclear programs.

North Korea releases Canadian pastor held since 2015:

state news agency

CTVNews.ca Staff 

Aug 9, 2017

After languishing for more than two years in a North Korean prison, a Canadian pastor was released Wednesday, according to the country’s state news agency.

Hyeon Soo Lim, 62, a pastor with the Light Korean Presbyterian Church in Mississauga, Ont., had travelled to North Korea more than a hundred times, leading humanitarian programs and even opening an orphanage. But during his last trip in 2015, he was detained and charged with attempting to overthrow North Korea’s regime using religion.

In what is believed to be a coerced statement, Lim soon admitted to the crimes after being sentenced to hard labour for life.

In this file image made from July 30, 2015, video, Canadian Hyeon Soo Lim speaks in Pyongyang, North Korea. (AP Photo)

“There were rumours that he was affiliated with the uncle that Kim Jong Un had executed a few years back, and that was partly the reason for his incarceration," Jack Kim, a senior advisor with HanVoice, a Canada-based human rights organization that assists North Korean refugees, recently told CTV News.

Then, two years and dozens of delicate diplomatic communications later, a Canadian delegation led by Daniel Jean, a national security advisor to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, travelled to Pyongyang this week to discuss Lim’s case in person.

"Pastor Lim’s health and well-being remain of utmost importance to the Government of Canada, and we are working to ensure that he receives any required medical attention," the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement.

That delegation was pivotal towards securing Lim’s release, Ontario MPP Raymond Cho said.

“It is important that Kim Jong Un got the representatives from Canada, so we saved his face,” Cho, who is Korean-Canadian, told CTV News. “It is a very good gesture.”

Since being imprisoned, Lim’s health was reportedly failing. He suffers from high blood pressure and allegedly lost nearly 40 kilograms while incarcerated.

According to North Korea’s news agency, Lim was released on “sick bail.”

N. Korea Sentences Canadian Pastor to Life Behind Bars

Pastor threatened North Korea regime with 'love'!

Korean-Canadian pastor Hyeon Soo Lim. © Kyodo / Reuters

North Korea’s highest court has sentenced a South Korea-born pastor from Canada to life for his religious activities, the North's official KCNA news agency has reported.

Hyeon Soo-lim, a pastor at a Toronto church, has visited North Korea more than 100 times in the last 18 years, helping to set up an orphanage and a nursing home.

Oh, the fiend, how could he do such un-North Korean activities?

According to the court, Lim tried to topple the regime, and undermine North Korea’s social system via “religious activities,” Xinhua reported.

The court also stated that Lim had carried out propaganda against North Korea, in the framework of a “human rights racket.”

He allegedly admitted that he had assisted people in defecting through Mongolia, meeting with the US ambassador to Ulan Bator to accomplish it.

Lim has been detained since February, and appeared on state TV earlier this year, confessing to crimes against North Korea.

He said he went to the country under the pretext of social work and collected the data he used in sermons outside North Korea to bring the regime to an end “with the love of God.”

And, why is that so threatening to North Korea? Oh yes, they're communist! No place for God or love in communist paranoia.

Lim is in his early 60s, and his church said in March that he “has a very serious heart problem” and “very high blood pressure,” and his relatives are “anxious to send medicine.”

He is the only Western citizen known to be currently behind bars in North Korea.

Canada is dismayed with such a harsh sentence for Lim, particularly given “his age and fragile health,” Global Affairs Department said in a statement, Reuters reports.

The fact that the detained pastor was not allowed to meet with Canadian officials since he was arrested in February, is “a serious violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations”, the government spokesperson added.

At the same time the 3,000-member Light Korean Presbyterian Church in Toronto didn’t respond to Reuters’ inquiries.

North Korea has previously dealt out harsh sentences for Western nationals: US-Korean missionary Kenneth Bae was given 15 years of hard labor, but was freed in 2014 after two years in jail.