It enlisted the DPRK as a "country of special concern" as regards the religious issue, while groundlessly pulling it up, claiming that genuine religious freedom is not guaranteed in north Korea and religious activities of individuals and organizations are harshly suppressed.

It is a height of hypocrisy for the U.S. to cry out for religious freedom as it has been engrossed in regime changes and destabilization activities in those countries that court its displeasure while going under the mask of religion.

During the last Korean war the U.S. mercilessly killed many religionists through indiscriminate air raids and bloody slaughter and destroyed more than 1 900 church complexes.

Before the liberation of Korea, the U.S. infiltrated Underwood and other operatives under the mask of religion and worked hard to instill flunkeyism toward the U.S. and American lifestyle into the Koreans. It did not hesitate to commit such despicable act as instigating those wicked elements trained by them to carry out an armed rebellion aimed at bringing down the party and social system of the DPRK.

The U.S. hostile policy toward the DPRK is still going on under the mask of religion.

Innumerable are the crimes committed by the U.S. in violation of religions in different parts of the world.

Former U.S. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and other reactionary ruling quarters of the U.S. worked with blood-shot eyes to crack down on Islam and bring down the social systems in Islamic countries under the pretext of "war on terror", not content with describing Islam as fascism.

It was none other than American hooligans who burned Koran and threw it into the toilet bowl and indecently behaved towards female Muslims who regard human ethics as holy.

In the DPRK religious belief and freedom are fully guaranteed by its constitution and all conditions are provided and guaranteed by law so that believers can freely practice religions at will.

Various reports released as annual farces in the U.S. are nothing but clumsy farces to tarnish the image of the DPRK and they are a vivid manifestation of the U.S. hostile policy toward the DPRK.

As long as the U.S. persists in its hostile acts against the DPRK, the latter will inflict harsher punishment on those who commit crimes against the law of the DPRK under the mask of religion.