A/HRC/25/CRP.1 practised Christianity in China and had also attempted to flee to the ROK. She was sent to Yodok Camp and was never heard from again.284 • In 2006, China forcibly repatriated Mr Kim Song-ju’s mother to the DPRK. According to his testimony, the Chinese authorities informed their DPRK counterparts that his mother had practised Christianity in China. The SSD interrogated Mr Kim’s mother for six months before she was sentenced to three years in a kyohwaso. However, because of the harsh treatment and the starvation conditions experienced in SSD detention, she was too weak to be sent directly to prison. The police sent her to the local hospital instead. There she was tied to the bed. Mr Kim’s uncle went to visit her, but she was too weak to eat the food he brought. Mr Kim’s mother starved to death, tied to her hospital bed. The MPS did not notify her relatives so they were unable to recover her body.285 • One witness gave information that he believed that his son was arrested by the SSD and sent to Kwanliso No. 18 because he had taken Bible studies in China with a Korean American pastor who was then under the surveillance of the SSD.286 257. In 2011, a woman from Ryanggang Province narrowly escaped arrest by KPA Military Security after a fellow believer gave away her name under torture. She and other witnesses also informed the Commission of how people who were caught in the possession of Bibles were tortured during interrogation and in some cases executed afterwards.287 258. Despite the toleration of a limited number of state-authorized houses of worship in Pyongyang and some suggestions to the contrary, the Commission finds that there is no effective freedom of religious belief in the DPRK. Such belief is treated as basically incompatible with, and hostile to, the state-sponsored personality cult surrounding Kim Ilsung and his descendants. Countless numbers of persons in the DPRK who attempt to practise their religious beliefs have been severely punished, even unto death. In consequence, the population of religious adherents in the DPRK has fallen from about 24 per cent of the population in 1950 to only 0.16 per cent of the population in 2002, estimates provided by the DPRK itself. 5. Principal findings of the commission 259. Throughout the history of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, among the most striking features of the state has been its claim to an absolute information monopoly and total control of organized social life. Based on witness testimonies, the Commission finds that there is almost complete denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion as well as of the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, information, and association. 260. The DPRK operates an all-encompassing indoctrination machine which takes root from childhood to propagate an official personality cult and to manufacture absolute obedience to the Supreme Leader (Suryong), effectively to the exclusion of any independent thought from the official ideology and state propaganda. Propaganda is further used by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to incite nationalistic hatred towards official enemies of the state: Japan, the United States of America, and the Republic of Korea, and their nationals. 284 285 286 287 Seoul Public Hearing, 22 August 2013, afternoon. London Public Hearing, 23 October 2013, session 1 (with additional details provided by the witness in a confidential interview). TJH010. TJH017, TJH018, TSH039. 73