North Korea’s extreme restrictions on religious freedom have only worsened since the start of the pandemic, according to a new human rights report, though small numbers of defectors still report that they engaged in secret religious activities when inside the country.

For its 2025 white paper on religious freedom in the DPRK, the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB) surveyed 15,303 defectors living in the South and found that 99.6% reported that free religious activities are impossible. 

“The response that religion is not allowed is almost 100%,” NKDB’s senior research fellow Lim Soon-hee said at a presentation on