U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has redesignated North Korea as a "country of particular concern" for suppressing religious freedom, government records showed Sunday.

North Korea was one of the 10 countries designated as CPCs under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. The other nine countries were Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Kerry made the designations in a government notice issued Wednesday.

"For the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the existing ongoing restrictions to which the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is subject" to trade restrictions provided in the Trade Act of 1974 with regard to its human rights violations, the notice said.

The North has been on the religious freedom CPC list since 2001 and was last designated as a CPC in July last year.

In an annual religious freedom report issued in October, the State Department said that the North tolerates no religious freedom and continues to deal harshly with those involved in "almost any religious practices." 

"The constitution guarantees freedom of religion for its citizens and the country is party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. However, religious freedom does not exist in practice," the 2014 International Religious Freedom Report said.

The report also cited the U.N. Commission of Inquiry's report on the North's human rights situation as saying that there was an almost complete denial of the right to freedom of religion and the North's leadership should be brought to the International Criminal Court for human rights abuses.

It also said that the North's policy toward religion has been to maintain "an appearance of tolerance for international audiences, while suppressing internally all non-state-sanctioned religious activities." (Yonhap)