North Korea is an oppressive and totalitarian nation with no tolerance of any kind of dissent or discussion of political and economic issues. Its 23.8 million people are strictly controlled in terms of freedom of movement, assembly and association. Famine, poverty and persecution drive North Koreans to flee to China, despite the risks of being caught and repatriated. Police in both countries invest heavily in manpower and resources to arrest refugees and those helping them.

Politics
Kim Jong-il's communist dictatorship isolates the population from the wider world and indoctrinates North Koreans with its ideology through education and culture. Kim Il Sung, the deceased father of Kim Jong-il, has been exalted and revered as a god to be followed with obedience.

Religion
The constitution guarantees religious freedom, but in reality genuine religious activity is prohibited and Christians are considered a threat to the regime. The Bible is banned. Most North Koreans have never heard about Jesus or seen a church.

Famine
Food prices have increased and although the weather was better in 2008, food production dropped for the third year in a row. Between 2 to 4 million people have starved to death since 1995 and in the year ahead, 8.7 million will need food aid. It is reported that food aid does not reach the people but is diverted to the military and the elite. Many survive on grass, roots and goods sold on the black market. Refugees report cannibalism.

Infant mortality and malnutrition rates are extremely high.

North Korea's capital, Pyongyang, was once known as the 'Jerusalem of the East'. In 1945, 13 per cent of the population were Christian. Between 1945 and 1950, the North Korean government executed or arrested all of the country's religious leaders. All religious families were relocated to industrial cities on the east coast or sent to forced labour camps.

Religious freedom
Despite virtually no freedom of religion, there are four 'show' churches in Pyongyang to demonstrate to tourists that there is freedom of religion. North Koreans must receive permission to attend these churches.

North Koreans are exposed to intensive and continuous anti-religious propaganda. Penalties for being caught practising religion or with religious materials include public execution, torture or imprisonment in gulags where believers are forced to perform hard labour and given less than subsistence levels of food.

Religious assembly
Despite the difficulties there is evidence to suggest that the church is alive and growing in North Korea. The famine triggered refugee movement between China and North Korea, allowing Christianity to spread. Christians still meet together to worship, but the chance of being betrayed is significant so believers are careful. They often do not even tell their own children about their faith or the secret meetings, because children are encouraged at school to betray their parents.

The official religious system
Kim Il Sung created a personality cult mimicking Japanese 'emperor worship' called Juche or 'Kimilsungism'. It twists the Holy Trinity of Christianity by teaching that Kim Il Sung is god, his son Kim Jong-il is the Christ figure, and the ideology of Juche replaces the Holy Spirit. North Koreans are indoctrinated with this belief system from the cradle to the grave.

Estimates suggest between 100,000 and 300,000 North Korean refugees are hiding in China. Some left in search of food or jobs to support starving families; others want freedom and a better life.

China's role
When North Koreans cross the Tumen River where it is shallow or frozen to reach China, this does not mean freedom; China has an agreement with North Korea to forcibly repatriate all refugees. Since leaving North Korea is a capital offence, China's policy potentially means sending refugees to their death.

In North Korea returned refugees are brutally interrogated; if they admit to attending a church or having contact with religious organisations doing humanitarian work in the border area, they will be severely punished, even executed.

China is a signatory to the 1951 UN Convention on the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol. The Convention requires China to grant access to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to the border area where most refugees are in hiding, and also to allow the UNHCR a role in determining the status of the refugees. China's government refuses, calling the refugees 'economic migrants'. China's police actively seek North Korean refugees and assist with interrogating, beating and imprisoning them.

Since it is unsafe for refugees to remain in China, they aim to reach South Korea or another country which will grant them refugee status. Sadly while in China, with no legal rights, 70 per cent of North Korean women refugees end up being forced into brothels, sold as sex slaves or wives.

There are 50,000 to 70,000 Christians currently detained in prison camps; about 15% of North Korea's 400,000 believers. Christians face brutal persecution if their faith is discovered and may be beaten, arrested, tortured or killed.

North Koreans can be imprisoned for virtually any state-defined crime, such as being a Christian, making a negative comment about the regime, failing to have a picture of Kim Il Sung in their house or failing to keep it clean enough, and travelling to China to look for food.

Punishment is not limited to the offender, but to three generations of the offender's family, and exposes them to severe violations of human rights that occur throughout the North Korean criminal system, such as systematic use of torture, executions, use of humans for weapons research and testing.

There are eight political prison camps which hold between half a million and a million people. Political prisoners are kept under constant threat of execution. There are 30 other camps which contain hundreds of thousands of North Koreans who are forced to work every day.

Two of the camps are together known to cover the same area as the Isle of Wight. In the last 30 years over 500,000 people are believed to have perished in North Korea's huge network of jails, prison camps and underground secret construction projects.

The food shortage combined with the hard labour required of prisoners means they die from starvation and from being overworked. Those who survive do so by eating any animal they can find, such as snakes and rats.