A report by a human rights group, Korea Future, says Christians in North Korea are being tortured more than adherents of other religious groups in the country.

The report detailed how the country’s government persecuted Buddhists, Shamans, Protestants, Cheondogyo and Catholic over the last 73 years.

The report released in December 2021, is titled “Torture and Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment experienced by North Korea’s Religious Minorities.”

The group interviewed a total of 237 survivors, witnesses and agents of persecution who ran away from North Korea to South Korea.

Christian Today reports that some of those tortured, during separate interviews by Korea Future, showed scars and skeletal deformities and suffered “back pain, incorrect healing of fractures, somatic complaints, and depressive disorders.”

“Christianity claims fewer adherents, yet it is the most severely persecuted religious tradition within North Korea.

“Underground churches consisting of small congregations exist in North Korea, but are rare and subject to extreme levels of persecution.”

Recalling how a female Christian who was running an underground church was killed by security operatives in prison, a witness said, “Her lip was shredded. The officers held her hair and pounded her head against the cell bars. One officer told her to lay her hand on the ground. He stepped on it and turned his feet 90 degrees. All of her fingers broke. She was denied medical treatment.

“I told her to stop running the underground church, but she said she had church members to take care of. She later died after she was seriously physically beaten by Ministry of State Security officials.”

According to the report, the government also uses food deprivation as another way of torturing Christian prisoners.

A survivor recounts, “The correctional officers chopped up frozen radish. There were only small pebbles and grains of sand served with the radish. At first, I could not eat the radish because of the small pebbles and grains of sand crunching between my teeth. But by the fifth day, I had to eat it because I was starving.”

Another survivor said, “I was extremely malnourished. My bones were showing. I kept praying in the cell because that was my only refuge. If I were to say anything about my religion, I would either have been executed by firing squad at the penal facility or transferred to a political prison camp for the remainder of my life.

“In the penal facility, I had to scavenge grass, beans, and potatoes from the field where I was forced to labour just to survive. I ate the crops that were still covered with dirt.”

Korea Future says, “The expansion of a political prison camp system, which detains up to three generations of families associated with religion for life, has embedded religion and belief as a de facto crime in the political and social consciousness of North Korea.”

Christian Watchdog, Open Doors, has ranked first on the list of 50 countries of the world where followers of Jesus Christ are most persecuted.

Open Doors has monitored Christian persecution worldwide since 1992.