Seoul: North Korea publicly executed a Christian woman last month for allegedly distributing the Bible, which is banned in the communist nation, South Korean activists said on Friday.
Ri Hyon Ok, 33, was also accused of spying for South Korea and the United States and organising dissidents. She was executed in the northwestern city of Ryongchon near the border with China on June 16, according to a report from an alliance of several dozen anti-North Korean activist groups.
Ri`s parents, husband and three children were sent to a political prison camp in the northeastern city of Hoeryong the following day, the report said, citing unidentified documents it says were obtained from North Korea. It showed Ri`s North Korean government-issued photo ID.
It is virtually impossible to verify such reports about the secretive North, where the authoritarian government tightly controls the lives of its citizens and brooks no dissent.
On Thursday, an annual report from a state-run South Korean think tank on human rights in the North said that public executions, though dropping in number in recent years, were still carried out for crimes ranging from murder to circulating foreign movies.
North Korea claims to guarantee freedom of religion for its 24 million people but in reality severely restricts religious observances. The cult of personality surrounding national founder Kim Il Sung and his son, current leader Kim Jong Il, is a virtual state religion.
The government has authorised three state churches, one Catholic and two Protestant, but they cater to foreigners; North Koreans cannot attend. However, defectors and activists say more than 30,000 North Koreans are believed to practice Christianity secretly.
The US State Department reported last year that "genuine religious freedom does not exist" in North Korea.
The activist alliance, whose Korean title translates as the Investigative Committee On Crimes Against Humanity, also alleged in its report that in March, North Korean security agents arrested Seo Kum Ok, 30, another Christian, in a city near Ryongchon and tortured her. The agents alleged she was attempting to spy on a nuclear site and hand over the evidence to South Korea and the US.
The report said it remains unclear whether she survived. Her husband was also arrested and their two children disappeared, it said.
Bureau Report
