There is no religion in North Korea; I was raised to be an atheist in an atheist country. We were taught about world religions, but belief in God was something for other people. We learned about Jesus Christ, about Islam and Buddhism, and even about North Korea’s religious history. After all, Pyongyang was once known as “the Jerusalem of the East.” But there was never a “religious education” class — we learned about religion in our general knowledge class, as part of the general world history we were taught.

We never had to be forced not to believe — in