5/30/2023 North Korea (International Christian Concern)—North Korea has reportedly sentenced a two-year-old to life in prison after his parents were arrested for possessing a Bible, according to the U.S. State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report 2022. The child’s parents were taken into custody after being found with a Bible, which is considered contraband in North Korea.  

North Korea’s government, known for its tight information control and religious suppression faces widespread criticism for its human rights record. This latest incident adds to concerns about the regime’s opposition. As many as 70,000 Christians and other religious minorities are imprisoned in camps.  

“The right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion [in North Korea] also continues to be denied, with no alternative belief systems tolerated by the authorities,” António Guterres, the United Nation’s secretary-general said in the report outlining liberty religious atrocities that have occurred in North Korea in the past years. 

International Christian Concern (ICC) highlighted Kim Jong Un as one of the world’s worst persecutors in its 2022 Persecutor of the Year report.  

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