hankyoreh

An annual U.S. report released Friday noted no change in the "extremely poor level" of religious freedom in North Korea, a regime designated every year since 2001 as a "country of particular concern."

The report reiterated that human rights will remain a part of the relations normalization process between Pyongyang and Washington and that the U.S. will continue to implement the North Korean Human Rights Act.

John Hanford, U.S. ambassador for international religious freedom, singled out Pyongyang as an exception to a general world trend.

"In the communist world in general, we see a gradual easing of religious persecution," he said in a briefing.

"There are serious exceptions to this, North Korea being the most blatant, where things are horribly restrictive and oppressive," he said.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said Friday's report support its own conclusions that countries like North Korea should be ree-designated as countries of concern.

This year's report repeats that while North Korea's constitution provides for freedom of religious belief, in practice the government severely restricts it.

"Genuine religious freedom does not exist," said the report, prepared for Congress by the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. Instead, the cult of current leader Kim Jong-il and his deceased father remain important ideological underpinnings of the regime, it said.

In an addition to last year, the report said ownership of Bibles or other religious materials is reportedly illegal and may be punished by imprisonment and execution.

The report also adds the case of Son Jong-nam, a man sentenced to death on charges of spying for South Korea. But activist groups in Seoul claim that he is being wrongfully persecuted for religious proselytizing in North Korea, his ties with Christians in China and for contacting his brother in South Korea.

It notes South Korea's 10-year sentence imposed in April this year of North Korean agent Yoo Young-hwa, a man accused of kidnapping a missionary helping North Korean refugees in China.

The report highlights actions taken under the 2004 North Korean Human Rights Act and by the U.S. government in response to its concerns about Pyongyang.

State Department officials and the presidential envoy on North Korean human rights, Jay Lefkowitz, have repeatedly raised awareness about the conditions in the communist state through speeches before American audiences, said the report.

The State Department provided a US$496,000 grant to the National Endowment for Democracy to improve and expand monitoring and reporting on North Korea's human rights conditions, and another grant to Freedom House for a series of conferences to pressure Pyongyang to end its abuses, according to the report.

"U.S. government policy allows U.S. citizens to travel to the country, and a number of churches and religious groups have organized efforts to alleviate suffering caused by shortages of food and medicine," it said.


Washington, Sept. 15 (Yonhap News)