A Christian woman accused of distributing the Bible, a book banned in
communist North Korea, was publicly executed last month for the crime, South
Korean activists said Friday.
The 33-year-old mother of
three, Ri Hyon Ok, also was accused of spying for South Korea and the United
States, and of organising dissidents, a rights group said in Seoul, citing
documents obtained from the North.
The Investigative
Commission on Crime Against Humanity report included a copy of Ri's
government-issued photo ID and said her husband, children and parents were sent
to a political prison the day after her June 16
execution.
The claim could not be independently verified
Friday, and there has been no mention by the North's official Korean Central
News Agency of her case.
But it would mark a harsh turn in
the crackdown on religion in North Korea, a country where Christianity once
flourished and where the capital, Pyongyang, was known as the "Jerusalem of the
East" for the predominance of the Christian
faith.
According to its constitution, North Korea
guarantees freedom of religion. But in reality, the regime severely restricts
religious observance, with the cult of personality created by national founder
Kim Il Sung and enjoyed by his son, current leader Kim Jong Il, serving as a
virtual state religion. Those who violate religious restrictions are often
accused of crimes such as spying or anti-government
activities.
The government has authorised four state
churches: one Catholic, two Protestant and one Russian Orthodox. However, they
cater to foreigners only, and ordinary North Koreans cannot attend the
services.
Still, more than 30,000 North Koreans are
believed to practice Christianity in hiding - at great personal risk, defectors
and activists say.
The US State Department said in a
report last year that "genuine religious freedom does not exist" in North
Korea.
"What religious practice or venues exist ... (are)
tightly controlled and used to advance the government's political or diplomatic
agenda," the US Commission on International Religious Freedom said in a May
report. "Other public and private religious activity is prohibited and anyone
discovered engaging in clandestine religious practice faces official
discrimination, arrest, imprisonment, and possibly
execution."
The report cited indications that the North
Korean government had taken "new steps" to stop the clandestine spread of
Christianity, particularly in areas near the border with China, including
infiltrating underground churches and setting up fake prayer meetings as a trap
for Christian converts.
Ri, the North Korean Christian,
reportedly was executed in the northwestern city of Ryongchon - near the border
with China.
"North Korea appears to have judged that
Christian forces could pose a threat to its regime," Do Hee-youn, a leading
activist, told reporters Friday in Seoul.
The South Korean
rights report also said North Korean security agents arrested and tortured
another Christian, Seo Kum Ok, 30, near Ryongchon. She was accused of trying to
spy on a nuclear site and hand the information over to South Korea and the
United States.
It was unclear whether she survived, the
report said. Her husband also was arrested and their two children have since
disappeared, it said.
The US government commission report
cited defectors as saying an estimated 6,000 Christians are jailed in "Prison No
15" in the north of the country, with religious prisoners facing worse treatment
than other inmates.
In Seoul, the rights group said it
would try to take North Korean leader Kim to the International Criminal Court
over alleged crimes against humanity.
Activists say such
alleged crimes - murder, kidnap, rape, extermination of individuals in prison
camps - can't take place in North Korea without Kim's knowledge or direction
since he wields absolute power over the population of 24
million.
AP