“Their aim is to wipe out every Christian in the country”

Russell Powell

North Korea has regained the dubious distinction of being at the top of the World Watch List of countries where Christians face persecution and discrimination for their faith.

The list, published annually by the mission organisation Open Doors, is now in its 30th year.

North Korea returns to number one with its highest levels of persecution ever, thanks to a fresh wave of violence under its new “Anti-reactionary thought law”.

The law has criminalised any published materials of foreign origin in North Korea, along with the Bible. It has led to the imprisonment or execution of teenage boys watching South Korean shows such as Squid Game. However, it is also being used to track down bibles and other Christian materials, printed or electronic.

“Christians have always been in the front line of attack for the regime,” saya North Korean escapee Timothy Cho.

“Their aim is to wipe out every Christian in the country. There can only be one god in North Korea, and that is the Kim family [of dictator Kim Jong-un].”

There has been an increase in the arrest of Christians and the discovery and closure of underground house churches. Those arrested may be executed or imprisoned for life, facing near-starvation, torture and sexual violence in the regime’s prison camps.

North Korea has been at the top of the list for the past 20 years – with the exception of last year, when Afghanistan recorded the most Christian persecution. Afghanistan dropped to number 9 on the list this year, reflecting the focus by the Taliban on rooting out those with links to the old regime, rather than uprooting the very small number of Christians who remained after the Taliban regained control in 2021.

Also concerning is the wave of Islamist violence sweeping across sub-Saharan Africa. It is most extreme in Nigeria where militants from the Fulani, Boko Haram, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) and others conduct raids on Christian communities: killing, maiming, raping and kidnapping for ransom or sexual slavery

Religiously motivated killings in Nigeria have risen from 4650 last year to 5014 – a staggering 89 per cent of the international total.

“The whole region is heading into catastrophe,” says Frans Veerman, managing director of

World Watch Research.

“The aim of Islamic State and affiliated groups is to destabilise the entire region, establish an Islamic caliphate – ultimately across the entire continent – and, long-term, they are confident this is within their reach.

“They are helped by other Islamists focusing on nonviolent, systemic Islamisation. Nigeria’s government continues to deny the violence is religious persecution, so violations of Christians’ rights are carried out with impunity.

“It isn’t just governments in Africa that aren’t facing up to the true nature of this religiously motivated purge, it’s governments across the world. The price of this denial is incalculable, not just to Africa, but to the whole world.”

In Asia, China has clamped down further on Christians,

SouthernCross introducing sweeping new rules on churches’ use of the internet.

According to Open Doors, China is driving an international campaign to redefine human rights away from traditional, universally recognised notions to more subjective “rights” such as subsistence, development and security.

Christian minorities who are seen to oppose these new rights by refusing to support the ruling party can be branded as disturbers of the peace or even terrorists. They face arrest, demolition of their church buildings and the deregistering of their churches.

Sweeping new rules on church use of the internet has further stifled the freedom of the nation’s almost 100 million Christians. Tracking apps introduced for COVID-19 data collection have been reutilised for extreme surveillance of Christians and other religious groups.

Open Doors works to support persecuted Christians throughout the world and, according to its latest top 50 list, 312 million Christians in those countries now face very high or extreme levels of persecution.

Worldwide, one in seven Christians experience at least “high” levels of persecution or discrimination. The proportion rises to one in five across the African continent, and two in five in Asia. SC

The 2023 Top 20

Last year’s rank in brackets

1. North Korea (2)

2. Somalia (3)

3. Yemen (5)

4. Eritrea (6)

5. Libya (4)

6. Nigeria (7)

7. Pakistan (8)

8. Iran (9)

9. Afghanistan (1)

10. Sudan (13)

11. India (10)

12. Syria (15)

13. Saudi Arabia (11)

14. Myanmar (12)

15. Maldives (16)

16. China (17)

17. Mali (24)

18. Iraq (14)

19. Algeria (22)

20. Mauritania (23)