Organizational Structure of Religious Freedom Violations Article 183 of North Korea’s criminal code lists “Crimes of Infringing on Socialist Culture,” which include “importing from abroad, or producing, or storing, decadent media without authorization.”5 Meanwhile, the Workers’ Party of Korea, operating on the Ten Principles, remains the determining authority of what is harmful to socialist culture, according to what has been taught or ordered by Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, and now Kim Jong Un. Owing to the distinct way the Workers’ Party of Korea monitors and enforces behavior across society, entities that are not regarded as security or law enforcement agencies in other countries actively implement policies that violate the right to religious freedom. Most prominent in this role are educational and media institutions, through which the Workers’ Party of Korea Propaganda and Agitation Department establishes what is politically—and therefore, in practice, criminally—right and wrong. Following these institutions, organizations subordinate to the Workers’ Party of Korea, such as the Children’s League, Youth League, and Women’s Union, manage Workers’ Party of Korea surveillance and control among their assigned remits, which are children between the ages of 7 and 13, young adults between the ages of 14 and 30, and women between the ages of 31 and 60, respectively. Finally, work and residential units serve as the long arm of Workers’ Party of Korea control, both denying religious freedom and monitoring for signs of religious belief at the level of daily life. Work units comprised of non-party members report on their members’ ideological alignment with the Ten Principles to their respective Labor Committees, such as the Farmer’s League or Laborers’ League, which in turn report to the Workers’ Party of Korea. Work units comprising a mixture of Workers’ Party and non-party members report in the same way to their respective party committees, which in turn report to the provincial Workers’ Party of Korea Committee, which in turn reports to sections of the Central Party Committee in Pyongyang. These entities then implement policies that prevent individuals from accessing religious materials, prohibit dissemination and manifestation of religious beliefs, and actively support law enforcement and security agencies by reporting to them beyond and in addition to the committee channels. 5 8 For example, every North Korean above the age of seven is required to associate with an organizational unit that receives directives from, and ultimately reports back to, the Central Party Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea. People’s Units (inminban) are compulsory associations tied to one’s place of residence and report to the local People’s Committee, which reports to the Provincial People’s Committee, which in turn is subordinate to the Workers’ Party of Korea as its members are attached to an organizational unit of the Workers’ Party of Korea. Another kind of organizational unit is tied to a North Korean’s age or place of work. This connects a citizen to everyday law enforcement supervision, as well as to the oversight of the Provincial Party Committee. For example, college students will belong to an organizational unit at their college that eventually reports to the Provincial Party Committee. At the same time, law enforcement officers from the Ministry of People’s Security and the Ministry of State Security are attached to each unit at the college. In addition to reporting to their direct administrative supervisors, the security officers attached to such units are also attached to an organizational unit at their local branch, whose provincelevel Party Committee reports directly to supervisors in the Central Party Committee. Song Min Kyu, a former student, experienced such oversight in frequent lectures designed to deny the right to religious freedom. She told investigators, “Lecture materials were sent from the Provincial Party Committee, via the Provincial Youth League Committee, then to the college branch of the Youth League. Participation was compulsory for all students […] During these sessions, they told us about religion-related crimes to prevent the students from engaging in them.” To illustrate this systematic denial, we sourced an educational manual produced by the Youth League in 2020 for internal use that describes party directives for its organizational units (excerpts shown in Figures 1 and 2). The directive uses an example of a woman who had learned and disseminated what are referred to as “religious doctrines that bring disease to a person’s ability for independent thought” and “religious songs” that had “turned [the woman] into a complete minion of the enemy.” In the directive, it describes how the woman was given “the specific task [by a foreign religious person] of gathering people who had gone mad for superstition, to organize them into an anti-state religious group. The woman used every means at her disposal to carry out the task set by the enemy.” Ibid, 340. Organized Persecution: Documenting Religious Freedom Violations in North Korea