North Korea Sentences 2-Year-Old To Life In Prison For Parents Owning A Bible
Pyongyang, North Korea - In May 2023, the North Korean regime sentenced a 2-year-old child to life in prison after his parents were arrested for owning a Bible, according to reports from the U.S. Department of State. This shocking act illustrates the severity of North Korea's crackdown on Christian faith, where even young children are not spared from the wrath of the regime.
As many as 70,000 Christians and other religious minorities are estimated to be imprisoned in brutal labor camps, where torture and death are all too common. Open Doors estimates that 50,000-70,000 Christians are held in North Korean prison camps, making it the most dangerous place in the world to be a Christian for the 24th consecutive year.
According to Open Doors USA, if your Christian faith is discovered in North Korea, you could be killed on the spot. If you aren't killed, you will be deported to a labor camp and treated as a political criminal, punished with years of hard labor that few survive. North Korean authorities are likely to round up your extended family and punish them too, even if your family members aren't Christians.
Reports from 2023 indicate that around 10 forcibly repatriated defectors were interrogated for months before being sent to political prison camps. Those with ties to Christianity faced the harshest punishments. When Chinese authorities repatriate North Korean refugees who escaped to China, the Kim regime often asks them two questions: whether they had contact with a South Korean, and whether they were in contact with Christian missionaries.
There are reports of public executions of Christians. As recently as 2022, the US State Department documented an incident in which officials executed a member of the Korean Workers' Party in front of 3,000 people for possessing a Bible. Ri Hyon-ok was allegedly publicly executed in Ryongchon on June 16, 2009, for giving out Bibles, while her husband and children were deported to the Hoeryong political prison camp.
In early 2024, the government announced stricter regulations and crackdowns. According to official reports, the authorities publicly executed about 30 middle-school students (early teenagers) for watching a Korean drama on a USB drive. Several teenagers (17 years old) were sentenced to life imprisonment or death for similar reasons in June and July 2024.
North Korean defector Illyong Ju recalls the immense dangers his family faced in their pursuit of faith. Illyong remembers huddling with his family in the darkness of their small, poverty-stricken home in Chongjin, listening to a forbidden Christian radio broadcast. "It was my cousin's family, they were all executed for sharing the gospel," Illyong said. His aunt's entire family was thrown into a political prison camp just because her aunt's father-in-law was a Christian.
There is no church life in North Korea. It's impossible to gather for worship or prayer, and even secret worship and prayer is at great risk. Official spies could inform on you, and so could your neighbors or teachers. Recognizing any deity beyond the Kim family is considered a threat to the country's leadership.
North Korean society regards Christians as members of the lowest class, the "hostile class," in the regime's songbun caste system. Members of the hostile class face difficulties in acquiring and holding onto jobs, are more likely to be sent to political prison camps, and are viewed as politically suspect.
According to a Korea Future Initiative report following interviews with 117 exiled North Koreans, 215 Christian victims of persecution were identified, ranging in age from three to 80. Their testimonies of arbitrary arrest, interrogation and sustained torture between 1990 and 2019 show that while the regime punishes all religious believers, the harshest punishments are often reserved for Christians. Entire families of Christians are sent to prison camps.
Particularly inhumane forms of torture were inflicted by prison guards. In one case a Christian convert was forced inside a tiny steel cage, about 100cms high and 100cms wide, with metal bars heated by an electric current. "Usually prisoners lasted only three to four hours in the cage, but I sat there for 12 hours and prayed," said the survivor. Prison guards pour water mixed with red pepper powder down the nostrils of inmates.
Yet, despite the constant threat of death, persecution, and imprisonment, the gospel is alive. Underground churches continue to thrive in secret, with believers worshiping in the shadows of mountains, hills, and prison camps. There are an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 Christians in North Korea today, approximately 1.5% of its 26 million population.
THE CRUSADER'S OPINION
A two-year-old sentenced to life in prison. Read that again. A toddler condemned to a labor camp because his parents owned a Bible.
This is North Korea. The worst place on Earth to follow Christ for 24 straight years. Seventy thousand Christians rotting in camps comparable to Nazi death camps.
Teenagers publicly executed for watching TV shows. Pastors shot in front of thousands for possessing Scripture.
Children forced to watch their parents murdered for praying. This isn't ancient Rome. This is 2025.
And where's the outrage? Where are the sanctions? Where's the international intervention?
We mobilize armies for oil, but 70,000 Christians suffering unimaginable torture in concentration camps barely make the news.
The Kim regime has perfected the art of persecution. They don't just kill believers, they torture families for generations.
Three-year-olds in prison camps. Entire bloodlines classified as "hostile" forever. Christians locked in heated metal cages for 12 hours while guards mock their prayers.
Yet the underground church grows. Four hundred thousand believers worshiping in secret. Smuggled Bibles treasured more than food.
Believers evangelizing other prisoners in the camps. These are the heroes of our faith. While we debate worship styles and church growth strategies, North Korean Christians literally die for holding a single page of Scripture. Their courage condemns our comfort.
TAKE ACTION
Smuggle Bibles Into North Korea:
- World Help: https://worldhelp.net/northkoreapersecution/
- $10 provides one Bible
Support North Korean Christians:
- International Christian Concern: https://persecution.org
- Phone: 1-800-422-5441
Pray and Advocate:
- Open Doors USA: https://www.opendoorsus.org/persecution/countries/north-korea/
- Download prayer guides for North Korean believers
- Phone: 1-888-524-2535
Emergency Aid:
- Voice of the Martyrs: https://vom.com
- Support families of imprisoned Christians
