A/HRC/10/18 page 11 facilities available. There are indications that practising religion gives rise to persecution.10 The regime lauds people who give up their lives to save portraits of the country’s leader.10 Recent reports indicate that security agents from the National Security Agency (bowibu) and the public security agency (anjeobu) have stepped up their surveillance and infiltration at borders in order to halt religious activities,16 even posing as pastors or setting up fake prayer meetings to entrap new converts. Those who seek refuge in other countries and who contact missionaries are liable to be punished severely if sent back. D. Asylum and migration 34. Since its inception, the regime has followed a policy of strict control over the movement of its citizens. Internally, travel permits are required if people wish to travel across the country. For external travel, an exit visa is required.10 35. The situation however, is even more complex.17 For years there has been a constant flow of people persecuted by the authorities fleeing the country clandestinely, without travel permits. The food crisis of the mid-1990s and thereafter has led to increased migration of people in search of food and other necessities across the border. There has thus been a persistent flow of people into neighbouring countries at times in search of food, employment and livelihood, at times escaping from persecution and oppression, at times for both reasons. 36. There has been much discussion internationally on whether these flows amount to forced migration and the search for asylum, which would give rise to refugee status, coupled with the application of the international law principle of non-refoulement, the right of the refugee not to be pushed back to areas of danger. The Special Rapporteur has dealt extensively with this issue in previous reports, bearing in mind that the international definition of “refugee” is a person who leaves his or her country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of persecution.18 This fear factor may arise before the person actually leaves the country, and or after the person leaves the country, becoming in the latter case a refugee sur place. 37. The main United Nations agency with a mandate to deal with asylum-seekers, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, must be supported so that it can reach those who seek asylum and provide assistance and protection to those falling into the category of refugees. Bilateral links with and support from possible destination countries may also help to loosen the strictures of first-asylum countries. 16 See also A Prison Without Bars, United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, Washington, D.C., 2008. 17 North Korea New Approaches, Proceedings of the eighth International Conference on North Korean Human Rights and Refugees, 22 January 2008, Chatham House, London, 2008. 18 See A/HRC/4/15, A/62/264, A/HRC/7/20 and A/63/322.