This is a GREAT example of boldness and bravery. As I said in a previous post, North Korea is THE WORST place to be a Christian.
So this woman deciding to be baptize is the epitome what means to take risks for Christ.
A North Korean Christian woman escaped to China for the chance to live a better life and to be baptized.
The woman, identified by Open Doorsministry as "Bon-Hwa," fled the repressive country more than two years ago. With the help of Open Doors' partners, Bon-Hwa found shelter in a safe house and attended her first Women to Women secret meeting.
It was at this meeting that Bon-Hwa came to know Jesus, leading to her baptism into Christ.
"She wanted to be baptized so badly that she couldn't wait any longer," said the Open Doors pastor who baptized her.
But baptizing North Koreans is illegal and dangerous, so Bon-Hwa, her pastor, and group leader traveled to a remote location that "took many hours to reach."
An Open Doors staff member described Bon-Hwa's baptism as a "holy moment." The pastor opened the small ceremony in prayer and christened the refugee - then everyone recited the Apostles' Creed(Keep reading).
God, give me the strength to be as bold as that woman. I want to give you the maximum amount of Glory.
North Korea is a nightmarish nation, a perilous police state and a totalitarian hellhole. It is the WORST place for anyone who names the name of Christ to live. And considering how badly Muslim majority nations treat our brethren in Christ, THAT’S saying something. It wasn’t always this way: in 1948 Christianity flourished all over the Korean Peninsula. Missionary work started in 1880s and then came the great Pyongyang revival of 1907 which lead to the mass conversions and church planting in what’s now North Korea. It got to the point where Pyongyang was once called the Jerusalem of the East.
Of course that is no longer the case. Our North Korean brethren in Christ face persecution in their public and private spheres of their lives, to the point that electronic surveillance of messages and emails. How did this come to be? Back in the colonial days, aegukbans AKA “patriotic groups,” were formed through a unified Korea. They were to be mandatory “neighborhood watch” programs that provided safety, food, labor and order.
After the Korean Civil War, North Korea renamed the surveillance program called imniban, or “people’s groups.” The purpose they served was supporting surveillance, a normal function of life and labor mobilization. Each group was appointed a leader (usually a woman) who would do a weekly unannounced inspection of each home in the middle of the night. The leader would closely monitor the income and report any suspicious activity to the local authorities ASAP.
Throughout the late 20th century, imniban project was lax until 2011 when Kim Jong-un became the leader. When that happened he sought to enforce the law which forbade religious material and the imniban now has the new duty of searching homes and punishing any violators found with religious materials, conducting religious practices and even simply saying a prayer blessing the food. Violators are tortured in labor camps and some will be killed for refusing to recant their beliefs. Those who recant their faith are sent to a camp to be “re-educated.” This includes labor and malnutrition among other not-good things.
The worst part about this all is that head of state gives rewards to people who report those with religious material, which means the Christian can’t really trust their family members. When the husband and wife defect for the sake of Christ they are SHOCKED to find out they knew Christ.
With all of this in mind, here are five ways to pray for our North Korean brethren in Christ:
1. Pray that North Korean officials will come to know Christ as Lord and for subsequent change in the regime and the power of evil will be broken permanently.
2. Kim Jong Un continues to consolidate his power. Pray that He comes to know Christ.
3. Pray that the North Korean Christian refugees in China will be strengthened and encouraged to endure by the provision of food, clothing, shelter and medicine.
4. Pray that our brethren in Christ stuck in prisons, labor camps and remote areas will continue to hope in Christ alone.
5. With the Coronavirus going around North Korea is at risk. Pray that the coronavirus will not go through North Korea.
May God break the chains of tyranny in North Korea,
Great to know that our brethren in Christ are praying for us over here in the West in general and the USA in particular, in the midst of their horrible suffering.
10/30/2013 North Korea (MNN) - As people gather to pray this Sunday (November 3) during the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church (IDOP), they should remember Christians in the world’s most persecuted country.
Rev. Eric Foley, CEO of Seoul USA, says instead of praying FOR members of the North Korean underground church, people should pray WITH them. “They don’t ask God to deliver them from persecution. They pray they’ll remain strong and faithful in the midst of their suffering.”
North Korea is the world's biggest Gospel opponent and persecutor of Christ-followers. It tops the Open Doors USA World Watch List, a ranking of the 50 countries where persecution of Christians is most severe.
Officials routinely put believers in modern-day concentration camps and worse. The government has tried repeatedly to extirpate Christianity from the country, but the underground Church has survived and has overcome severe suffering.
“The NK Christian’s example may help Americans better prepare for the persecution that may be coming soon to the USA," explains Foley. “Their experience reminds us that a commitment to the four pillars of worship is integral to the Christian life.”
I know this is from 2013, but it’s great to know that these North Korean Brethren in Christ are displaying endurance, since they are praying for their American brethren in Christ even as they being tortured horribly for loving Christ. May we here in the west, take a hint and remember our brethren as they are suffering and being persecuted for the King.
As you have all noticed. I was inactive for the entire year of 2019 on this blog. That's all about to change: Here is a recap of what has happened in late 2018 and all of 2019:
1. Asia Bibi released
Normally, when it comes to persecution, there is always bad news. For once however, there is some good news and it is welcome
Asia Bibi was convicted and put on death row for Blasphemy back in 2009. Apparently she got into a heated discussion with some of the Muslims at a well and said,"Jesus is alive, Muhammad is dead." This caused the Muslims (as is the case in Pakistan) to call the cops and throw her in prison. She was released in October 2018 and she moved to Canada shortly afterwards.
2. Bombing in Sri Lanka
On Easter, as our Sri Lankan brethren in Christ celebrated our Lord conquering death by rising from the grave, a Muslim got it into his mind that this was the perfect time to follow his prophet's command to attack non-Muslims, hence this attack:
Some leaders say this was in retaliation to an attack that happened in New Zealand which leads us to:
3. Shooting at mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand
On March 15th, 2019, a white man went into a mosque and open fire killing numerous Muslims. He did it because he was concerned about the rapid birthrates of Muslims and that they would eventually outnumber the Caucasians.
While this blog is focused on the persecution of my brethren in Christ, I believe that all people regardless of whether they know Christ or not are made in the image of God and therefore attacking ANYONE of any faith is wrong. This blogger condemns this shooting.
4. Rise of Christians in China
More good news.
Due to Marxism (an ideology that believes God is a myth made up to oppress the poor) being the ideology that drive their government, China has been known to oppress Christians. This has not stop the number of saints from growing in that country as this article highlights (Read here)
5. Imprisonment for Iranian Christians
9 Iranian Brethren in Christ were imprisoned on trumped up charges, due to participation in a home church earlier in the year of 2019 (between January 31 and February 23 to be exact). They were sentenced to 5 years of prison (Read more)
6. Escape from Prison in North Korea
North Korea is the WORST place for anyone who names the name of Christ to live. Considering the hell, that countries like Saudia Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt put our brethren through that is saying something and yet we have another good news story of someone who escaped from prison in this article here (Read).
Why is this considered a Miracle? Well North Korea is known for having surveillance on people's private and public life. If someone is suspected of praying or reading the Bible they are sent to prison. There, they are tortured and put in solitary confinement. If one denies their faith, they are sent to a "re-education camp," where they are in poor living conditions, subjected to 12 hours of hard labor and if they are married to someone else, they are forced to divorce them. After a number of years, they are released.
If the prisoner refuses to recant their faith, they are sent to the kwanliso, otherwise known as the Korean political prison camp where they are used as test subjects for bio-weapons, assaulted by guards (physically and sexually). To say nothing about the forced labor, poor sanitation the inmates endure there.
That's what makes this escape from the prison a miracle.
So those are the highlights of what is happening with our brethren in Christ who are being persecuted all over the world.
6/20/2013 North Korea (CIC) - North Korea has found U.S. citizen Kenneth Bae guilty for "hostile acts" against the state, sentencing him to 15 years of hard labour. The verdict was handed down on April 30th. A press release from North Korea's "Korean Central News Agency" reported on May 15th that he has now begun serving his sentence within a "special prison."
Kenneth, described as a devout Christian, is the owner of a North Korea tour company. He was in the country with official permission when detained by North Korean authorities on November 3rd. Human rights activist Rev. Robert Park says one thing is certain. "Bae, a humanitarian who had compassion for North Korea's starving and abandoned orphans, is not indictable for any crime. Rather, he is a hostage being held to accommodate yet undetermined North Korean agenda."
The concerned activist further explains that this case is reminiscent of the still unresolved case of a Christian minister and humanitarian, Rev. Kim Dong-shik, who died in a North Korean prison. In 2000, North Korean agents crossed the border and hunted Kim down in China where he was operating several underground shelters for North Korean refugees. He was abducted and returned to North Korea where he was reportedly tortured and starved to death.
A 2011 report from the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea discovered that the country has abducted more than 180,000 people from 12 countries. Apart from North Korea's own citizens, Rev. Park said no nation and people have suffered more as a result of the savagery...than the Republic of Korea (South Korea). Apart from the abductions, murders and terrorist attacks, he believes North Korea continues to be the world's worst proliferator of nuclear weapons technology, also committing crimes against humanity and genocide against its own people(Source).
05/18/2013 Washington D.C. (International Christian Concern)
– After the recent sentencing of an American Christian to 15 years’ hard labor,
North Korea shows no signs of releasing the U.S. tour operator, solidifying its
reputation as the world’s worst persecutor of Christians. In November 2012, Kenneth Bae (Pae Jun-ho), a 44-year-old Korean American
tour operator was arrested by authorities in North Korea while leading a trip
with five Europeans into the Rason Special Economic Zone, a pilot region on the
border of China and Russia which is open to foreign companies.
Bae, who lived in China, ran a travel agency called Nation Tours and had
visited North Korea several times before without incident, according to Do
Hee-youn, who heads the Citizens Coalition for the Human Rights of North Korean
Refugees, based in Seoul. He is at least the sixth American detained in North
Korea since 2009.
Since his sudden arrest on unclear charges, there was almost no news of him,
until May 6, when the government-run Korean Central News Agency reported that he
was charged with “committing crimes aimed at toppling the Democratic
People’s Republic of Korea with hostility towards it,” according to The
Independent.
Reasons for Arrest
On May 10, after mounting pressure on North Korea to provide justification
for his arrest and sentencing, the government released a detailed report with a
long list of allegations against him. According to the report, Bae gave
anti-Pyongyang lectures in China and “infiltrated” about 250 students into the
city of Rason.
North Korea said that Bae “set up plot-breeding bases in different places
of China for the purpose of toppling the government from 2006 to October 2012
out of distrust and enmity. He committed such hostile acts as egging citizens of
(North Korea) overseas and foreigners on to perpetrate hostile acts to bring
down its government while conducting a malignant smear campaign against it. He
was caught red handed,” The Guardian reported.
Speculation surrounds the reason for his arrest in the first place, with
reasons including his compassion for orphans, possible links with a missionary
organization and his potential for being used by North Korea as bait for
political maneuvering.
Bae is known to have “feelings for orphans and has done some ministry
work feeding orphans,” according to David Ross of Antioch World Ministries
Inc. in Monroe, Washington. Ross and Bae reportedly met four years ago through
church affiliations in Hawaii and have been “casual acquaintances” since,
according to UCA News. It’s possible that he was arrested while taking pictures of orphans in the
markets of Rason, something in keeping with his known concern for children,
which was taken to be anti-North Korean propaganda. However that remains
speculative, at best.
“I don’t know the specifics about that. I think he could have because of
who he is and he’s generous in giving, maybe he could have delivered bread to
orphanages once or twice, but I really don’t know if that is the reason,”
his sister, Terri Chung, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
According to the Telegraph, Bae’s Facebook page links to an organization in
Ohio called the Joseph Connection, which describes itself as “a Christ
centered, humanitarian outreach to the Least of the Least world-wide.” It
organizes short-term trips into closed or restricted countries “to touch the
average person.” If discovered, the missionary link could have prompted his arrest. North
Korea has a history of violent and extreme persecution of Christians. For 11
consecutive years, Open Doors has ranked the country as the leading persecutor
of Christians, a view supported by the Pew Research Center(Source).
12/30/2012 North Korea (CIC) - An American, who has been linked to a Protestant group spreading Christianity, was expected to spend New Year behind bars in North Korea on charges of "hostile acts against the republic". The North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said that Bae Jun-ho had entered the country on November 3 through the far northeastern city of Rajin as part of a tour.
Rajin is part of a special economic zone not far from Yanji, China, that has sought to draw foreign investors and tourists over the past year. Yanji, home to many ethnic Korean Chinese, also serves as a base for Christian groups that shelter North Korean defectors.
"In the process of investigation, evidence proving that he committed a crime against (North Korea) was revealed. He admitted his crime," the KCNA dispatch said. The North said the crimes were "proven through evidence" but did not elaborate.
Human rights activists in South Korea said they believed Bae to be Kenneth Bae, 44, who was born in South Korea and later moved to the United States where he received American citizenship. Bae was reportedly acting as a travel agent specializing in taking tourists and investors around North Korea, while in reality he may have been a Christian missionary, said Cindy Ryu, Democrat representative of Bea's home state of Washington.
“Many of us are third- and fourth-generation Christians and many of our pastors are originally from North Korea,” she explained in published remarks. “We want to visit our home country, but in North Korea you cannot say you are a missionary.” The U.S. State Department said it was aware of the case, but declined to provide more details(Source).
12/27/2012 China (ChinaAid) - A Korean pastor is being threatened with expulsion after the house church worship service at which he was preaching on Sunday was raided by Shanghai police, ChinaAid has learned. The Korean pastor surnamed Hu was right in the midst of his sermon at 2 p.m. on Dec. 23 to the Zhenguang (True Light) House Church, in the Xiangshan (Fragrant Hills) New Housing Development, in Shanghai's Pudong New Area, when the officials from the Public Security Bureau, Religious Affairs Bureau and local police station grabbed him and took him into custody and dispersed the meeting. Hu was held for two hours and not released until 4 p.m. He was told he would be expelled from China(Source).
12/6/2012 North Korea (ChristianToday) - Christians in North Korea are reporting that their situation has not changed under the leadership of Kim Jong-un. North Korea has topped the Open Doors World Watch List of the 50 worst persecutors of Christians for 10 years in a row. Open Doors USA says that although the communist country's new leader has experimented with light agricultural reform and is a fan of Mickey Mouse, he has not made "any essential changes" in the first year since his father Kim Jong-il's death.
The organisation, which supports persecuted Christians worldwide, said Kim Jong-un had increased the number of spies in China searching for Christians and organisations that help North Korean refugees. Border patrols have been taken over by North Korea's National Security Agency, which has put pressure on captured smugglers to disclose information about Christians helping defectors. Open Doors reports that some arrested Christians were tortured and then released in order to betray their brothers and sisters or to serve as bait.
"This is extremely tragic," says a Open Doors co-worker involved in ministry among North Koreans.
"It's so dangerous to help Christians who have been released by the government. Some have been tortured so severely they cannot walk anymore.
"Often we cannot help them because that would bring too much risk to us.
"We can pray for them. We know that Jesus will not leave them, nor forsake them."
North Korean authorities are also tightly controlling television, radio and mobile phones.
Open Doors said North Korean Christians were reporting that they felt just as isolated from the outside world as they had done under Kim Jong-il.
The organisation said there were no signs that Kim Jong-un would improve freedom of religion in the country, as Christians contacts there continue to report that there have been no change in their circumstances(Source).
07/30/2012 China (Chosun.com) - Several South Korean activists have been arrested and tortured by Chinese police, groups working to help North Korean defectors alleged Friday. One South Korean pastor who organized underground churches in North Korea allegedly suffered waterboarding and electrical torture when he was arrested in China in 1991, they said.
Yoo Sang-joon, a North Korean defector whose story formed the basis for the 2008 South Korean film "Crossing," was beaten by Chinese police for 24 hours while in Chinese custody in May last year. At the time, Chinese police warned him not to talk about the beating before they released him.
An activist helping North Koreans escape said, "To avoid diplomatic friction, Chinese police sometimes incite Chinese prison inmates to beat the South Korean activists."
But whenever South Korean victims lodge protests after their release, Chinese authorities deny the allegations. "South Korean activists helping North Koreans have been tortured by Chinese police for 20 years," said Do Hee-yoon of the Seoul-based Citizens' Coalition for Human Rights of Abductees and North Korean Refugees(Source).
05/03/2012 North Korea (AFP) - A new report on North Korea's notorious political prison camps shows that many of those jailed in recent decades were desperate people seeking food or work overseas rather than dissidents.
Other offences were even more trivial, it says: one female former student was serving a term for having a western-style dance with a foreigner, another student was incarcerated for singing a South Korean song.
An entire family was thrown into a camp after the father forgot to refer to the state's late founder Kim Il-Sung as "Great Leader" during an ideological session.
The report by the South's National Human Rights Commission, a state-appointed body, is its most detailed investigation of human rights abuses in the communist state. Officials provided extracts to AFP this week before its upcoming release.
"It details the horrific situation of inmates," a commission official said.
The report is based on interviews with 834 refugees, including those once held in the six camps, which rights groups say house a total of around 200,000 "political" prisoners.
It lists the names of 278 people in the camps between the mid-1990s and 2005 and information on their offences.
"We hope this report will have the effect of checking and preventing human rights abuses in North Korea," Lee Yong-Ken, head of the commission's North Korea human rights team, told AFP. Among the 278, about 60 prisoners -- the largest single category -- were being punished for fleeing the impoverished country in search of food and work abroad or for trying to escape to South Korea.
Twenty-seven of the inmates were ethnic Koreans who had settled in the North after moving from Japan.
Five people were imprisoned for Christian worship while 29 were "guilty by association" -- serving time because of alleged offences committed by family members(Source).
Not surprisingly the persecution of my North Korean brethren in Christ has increased ever since their old emperor died at the end of last year. I pray that they keep on being brave for the Lord Jesus Christ.
01/14/2012 North Korea (Crosswalk) - Since the unexpected death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il December 17th, and the succession to power of his third son, Kim Jong Un, the underground Christian church has faced increased persecution.
“Three weeks ago seven underground churches got exposed,” says Thomas Kim, executive director of Cornerstone Ministries, which is actively involved in serving the church in North Korea. “It’s been very difficult for the last month and I think it’s going to continue,” he says.
The North Korean leadership apparently fears the kind of insurrection that swept other communist regimes and is now sweeping the Middle East. “They are scared there will be an uprising,” Kim notes. “They are scared by the expansion of the Christian faith because Christians will die for their faith.”
The old guard surrounding Kin Jong Un are anxious for a smooth transition, and this is impacting the church. “The regime has been putting pressure on to stabilize society,” Kim says. In the months preceding Kim Jong Il’s death, there were few attempts to search for underground believers, but that has changed.
“Now the regime is putting out many people to search for the underground church,” Kim notes. “There is a need to pray for protection.”
Kim believes change will come when the old guard is replaced with younger reformers. “The current people surrounding Kim Jong Un are old and have been there a long time,” Kim observes. “They are not reformers; they want to keep the old system(Source).”
The old emperor of North Korea Kim Jong-Il died a few days ago and our Korean brethren in Christ are still being persecuted. They will be in my prayers.
12/28/2011 North Korea (MNN) - North Korea sent off their "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-Il in a massive ceremonial farewell Tuesday. At the same time, North Korea moved to strengthen a new personality cult around Kim's son and successor, Kim Jong-Un.
It's usually the unknown that has people on edge, wondering what changes will be coming with a successor. However, there's good and bad news on that front. Todd Nettleton is a spokesman for The Voice of the Martyrs USA. "I spoke the night after the announcement of Kim Jong-Il's death with one of our VOM workers who works on the Korean peninsula, and his message was, 'Don't look for any significant changes, at least in the short-term.'"
It's widely thought that Kim Jong-Il had been ill for some time, so the likelihood that whoever was running the country in his absence will continue to do so under the name of Kim Jong-Un. "There were people who were making the decisions and keeping things going on his behalf. It is believed that those same people will now be in charge behind the scenes for Kim Jong-Un, maintain his authority, maintain his power."
The country has been known for its disregard for human and religious rights. North Korea's policies and practices that persecute believers have kept it atop the Open Doors World Watch List for over four years. It is estimated that between 50,000 to 70,000 Christians suffer in prison camps because of their faith. People rarely get out of alive.
Despite that, the reclusive nation claims they have freedom of religion. Nettleton explains, "If you acknowledge Kim Jong-Il as a divine being, if you pray to Kim Il Sung--the founder of North Korea, and expect him to provide blessings and provisions in your life, then there is religious freedom for you."
In practice, there is no freedom to build churches or to worship in homes. An estimated 400,000 Christians practice their faith in underground networks. Possession of a Bible or Christian material is illegal and punishable by death.
Two years ago, authorities stepped up their surveillance of Christians, and house searches are said to be more rigorous than in the past. Why the overkill response to Christians? Nettleton says believers are viewed as "a danger to society."
"Locking people in concentration camps--not just the people who are assumed to be guilty of this crime but their parents and their children as well"-- is not an unusual response. "Three generations to try to rid the country of this Christian philosophy that undermines not only the religion of Juche and the religion of the Kim's as divine beings, but it undermines the legitimacy of the government itself(Source)."
Yesterday the Korean Leader Kim Jong Il died. I don't think the fortunes of my Korean brethren are going to improve however.
12/19/2011 North Korea (The Huffington Post)-A day after authorities announced the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, several Christian organizations are calling for prayers for the nation's persecuted Christians, one of many so-called dissident groups that have suffered under the North Korean regime.
While Christianity has experienced immense growth throughout South Korea and other Asian countries, human rights groups estimate that there are 50,000 to 70,000 Christian prisoners in North Korea, which has routinely made the U.S. State Department's list of "countries of particular concern" when it comes to religious freedom.
"Though this brutal dictator, who was responsible for so many atrocities, has died, the future is still unknown. Some speculate that his son Kim Jong Un will be just as cruel to all dissenters. Others suggest that he may be more lenient. We simply do not know," said Carl Moeller, President an CEO of Open Doors USA, which monitors the persecution of Christians in dozens of nations.
"This is why it is vital that Christians around the world pray for North Korea during this transitional time. Pray especially for the brave Christians inside North Korea. They are fearful that they might face even more suffering," he said.
Because of the country's political and cultural isolation and government-controlled media, statistics on its religious breakdown vary. Self-reporting from the North Korean government to a United Nations Human Rights Commission in 2002 said there were 12,000 Protestants, 10,000 Buddhists, and 800 Catholics in the nation of 24 million people. South Korean and international organizations have made much higher estimates. A report on global Christianity that the Pew Forum released Monday estimates that there are 480,000 Christians in North Korea.
For eight years, North Korea has held the top spot on Open Doors' list of nations with the worst treatment of Christians. Total estimates of those imprisoned for religious and other reasons put North Korean political prisoners at 150,000 to 200,000, according to the U.S. State Department.
More common than religion is the cult of personality around the nation's founder, "Great Leader" Kim Il Sung, and his son and now late "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il. The North Korean idea of "juche," or self-reliance, is a popular motivating force that is taught in schools.
In a press release, Open Doors, which keeps discreet contact with Christians in the nation, quoted a source named "Simon" who said that religious persecution is getting worse, not better.
"Since Kim Jong Un came closer to the helm, North Korea has stepped up its attempts to uncover any religious activities. There have been more house raids, more spies trained to infiltrate religious and human rights networks and one South Korean Christian who was murdered in China because he helped refugees," said Simon.
religious organizations, such as the World Evangelical Alliance, are more optimistic about the current situation. Mervyn Thomas, chief executive of Christian Solidarity Worldwide, took a similar view Monday(Source).
10/15/2011 North Korea (TC) - The Chinese government has told South Korea that it is determined to repatriate 20 North Korean defectors who were arrested in Shenyang and elsewhere last month. Seoul asked Beijing to let them go to South Korea, but Beijing said this would encourage an unmanageable flood of copycats. China signed up to the UN Refugee Convention in 1982. Article 1 of the convention classifies a refugee as a person who "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or… is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country".
Article 33, Clause 1 stipulates that signatories of the convention must not send refugees to places where they are under threat of death and also bans forced repatriations.
If China now sits face to face with the U.S. to discuss global political and economic issues, it is also bound to abide by the UN convention and cooperate with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to investigate whether North Korean defectors are indeed refugees or criminals on the run. Once they are found to be refugees, China must offer them humanitarian treatment.
The world is fully aware of the fact that North Korea defectors who are sent back face imprisonment in political prison camps and beatings, brutal torture and even public execution. China is probably more aware than any other country of such abuses. The North Korean Human Rights Resolution which the UN General Assembly has adopted each year since 2005 also sheds light on the torture and executions of North Korean defectors. But China continues to send North Korean defectors back, citing a border treaty it signed with Pyongyang in 1998(Source).
While it is certain that North Korea has committed a political and ideological genocide, which has claimed millions of innocent lives, it is often overlooked that the North Korean regime has also in every aspect violated the UN Genocide Convention, to which it is a state party.
Raphael Lemkin's Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was enacted in the wake of the Holocaust and the unprecedented devastation of World War-II. This was the first human rights treaty adopted by the United Nations, and was intended to serve as a legal infrastructure which, if followed faithfully, would not only assist in preventing genocide from happening again, but also facilitate intervention in the event of a genocide which is underway.
Article 2 of the 1948 Convention defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures to prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."
...
Before the division of Korea, the north was considered to be the center of Christianity in East Asia with millions of believers; 25 to 30 percent of the population in Pyongyang was Christian. Today, North Korea is internationally recognized as the worst violator of religious freedom in the world and true religious belief is not tolerated. Christians are either publicly executed or forcibly transferred to concentration camps where they are systematically starved, tortured and worked to death along with their entire families to three generations, including non-religious relatives and children. The cruelty and barbarity occurring in these camps has no parallel in the world today. In 2002, the National Association of Evangelicals stated that North Korea is "more brutal, more deliberate, more implacable, and more purely genocidal" than any other nation in the world.
Every method which constitutes genocide as outlined in the Convention is being utilized by the regime to destroy its indigenous religious population through the widespread practice of public executions, systematic use of torture, deliberate deprivation of food and medicine in concentration camps, persecution of the children of religious believers, and the forcible transfer and imprisonment of children(Source).
9/9/11 North Korea (Sydney Morning Herald) - A South Korean missionary working with North Korean refugees in China died suddenly in the street amid suspicions Pyongyang agents were involved, a newspaper and another missionary said Friday. Another South Korean activist working elsewhere in northeast China has alleged he himself was stabbed with a poison-tipped needle in a separate non-fatal incident, the Korea JoongAng Daily reported.
Seoul's foreign ministry said it did not know whether there was any North Korean involvement in the incidents, but its diplomats had asked Chinese authorities to ensure the safety of South Koreans near the North's border.
...
The ministry said it was investigating an alleged non-fatal attack on a 59-year-old activist, which had not been reported to Seoul's consulate in Shenyang or to police. The consulate "has strongly requested the related organisation in the Chinese government to ensure the safety of South Koreans in border regions, and plans to take necessary measures to prevent further incidents from happening," its statement said.
The Korea JoongAng Daily said there are suspicions both men were the victims of North Korean agents trying to silence voices of dissent, but there was no firm evidence of this. It said the activist who survived had collapsed in the street in Yanji in the Chinese province of Jilin and was rushed to hospital.
The unidentified man said he had been stabbed in the waist with a poisoned needle after leaving a sauna, the paper said. He had reportedly been openly protesting against the North's regime. Tim Peters, a Seoul-based Christian activist, said he had a "very strong suspicion" but no evidence that the missionary who died had been poisoned by the North's agents.
He told AFP the victim had been involved in evangelical work among North Korean refugees, an activity that was taken extremely seriously by the regime. Peters founded Helping Hands Korea, an organisation involved in evangelising and giving general assistance to refugees from the North who cross into northeast China.
Asked if missionaries were in fear of such attacks, he said: "There's a kind of sobering awareness that this is always lurking in the shadows. It's part of the price one pays for doing missionary work in this area."
South Korean pastor Kim Dong-Shik was kidnapped in Yanji in January 2000 and taken to North Korea, according to Seoul authorities.
Kim had been reportedly involved in helping refugees flee to South Korea via a third country. His fate is unknown(Source).
"The blood of the Martyrs is the seed of the gospel"- Tertullian, North African Christian Apologist
8/9/11 North Korea (Christian Post) - Persecution in countries such as North Korea has helped grow the Church and has allowed it to utilize tools that the western Church no longer realizes its possesses, according to Evangelical pastor Eric Foley, who plans to use these tools to help the free world church. Foley, the pastor of .W Evangelical Church of Colorado Springs and Seoul, Korea and author of Church is for Amateurs, believes that harsh dictators such as North Korea’s Kim Jong Il, a persecutor of Christians, may help the church more than they think.
While ministering in North Korea Foley noticed the “absolute persecution” of Christians and he feels it provides a great catalyst for Church growth.
“[In North Korea] It is not only illegal to possess a bible or to go to church, it’s illegal to bow your head, close your eyes and worship. So as a result of that it presents the most extreme case for the church to take reap today,” said Foley.
He stated that common tools used for discipleship in the west today such as full time paid pastors and church buildings are not only rare in North Korea but impossible to attain with their current laws. But this is not an uncommon state for the church.
“Throughout church history churches have had to do discipleship with far more restrictions and this has caused them to be much more focused on growing individual believers into the fullness of Christ,” said Foley.
According to Foley the differences between the persecuted Church and the western Churches are attributed to the fact that the west does not understand the difference between freedom of religion and freedom in Christ, leading them to rely on tools such as specially designated buildings and full time paid pastors which persecuted Christians cannot attain.
“These aren’t bad things, but when our faith is grounded or rooted in these tools, then when persecution comes we fall away,” said Foley.
Foley believes the tools used in the North Korean Church and the New Testament Church are based on freedom in Christ. Freedom and affluence hinder growth while the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church according to Foley. Foley adds that by not sharing the gospel in the west, it brings very little chance of true growth and discipleship.
“If we do the things that God calls us to do we’ll be persecuted whether it’s in North Korea or the U.S., whether it’s by the government or by our co-workers,” said Foley.
Foley feels that persecution purifies the Church, and prosperity makes it weak. According to him the free world church can learn a lot from nations such as North Korea and can learn a lot to change the state of Christianity for the better.
“And so I say that Kim Jong Il was the inspiration for this strategy as a way of reminding us that whatever the enemy intends for evil God intends for good,” said Foley(Source).
06/12/2011 North Korea (GlobalPost) — In the beginning, they arrived in ones and twos across the Mekong River. They were dirty, skeleton-thin and scared to death. Sugint Dechkul, a small-town lawyer in Thailand’s far-northern Chiang Rai province, had no idea what to make of them. They’d wander up the riverside country road near his home, sometimes begging for food or shelter in an alien tongue.
“We’d ask, ‘Where are you from?’ They couldn’t answer,” Sugint said.
Finally, through painstaking pantomime, one of the stragglers conveyed his origins. North Korea, nearly 3,000 miles away. That was nine years ago. Today, the so-called “underground railroad” traveled by North Korean defectors increasingly terminates in Thailand.
In recent years, North Korean defectors’ network has discovered Thailand is the gateway to their dreams: resettlement in Seoul, South Korean citizenship and thousands in cash to start life a new life. Though this tropical nation is distant from the often chilly Korean peninsula, it is the nearest reachable ally of South Korea, which maintains a policy of financially aiding and patriating its divided kin.
“The first ones looked like they hadn’t showered in a month,” Sugint said. “My children begged us, saying ‘Mommy, Daddy, you have to help them.’ Now they come in big groups with kids on their back. They know their way and they know what they’re doing.”
The journey to Thailand can take months and the path is lined with informants and extortionists. Capture in neighboring China means certain deportation and quite possibly execution. If not killed, those returned to North Korea can expect slave labor in a string of camps believed to hold 200,000 prisoners.
But for North Korean defectors such as Joseph, who grew up starving under Dictator Kim Jong Il’s regime, the alternative was slowly wasting away on a family farm.
“We were starving,” said Joseph, using his English-language pseudonym. “So many people back home had died.”
Fleeing famine, Many escapees flee when the Yalu River, dividing China and North Korea, freezes over in
winter. But Joseph’s family simply found a shallow bend to swim across. They hoped that border guards would not spot them and fire their Kalashnikov rifles. Against the odds, they linked up with an underground Christian network managed in part by former defectors. Joseph, then 13, was taken aback by his first spoonfuls of pork and chicken while he was hiding out at a Chinese safe house.
“I had never really heard of these animals,” he said. A Chinese couple who sheltered his family at the risk of long prison terms also offered him a slice of birthday cake. It was spongy, sweet and somewhat repellant. “I didn’t like it at all. I had only eaten rice and vegetables that my parents grew.” Along with cake, the family who housed them introduced Joseph and his family to another foreign concept: Jesus.
“No one in North Korea knows about Christianity,” he said. “But they told me about it and I was saved. I know now that God had helped us many times.” Christianity, practiced by roughly one-third of South Koreans, is the de facto faith of the so-called “underground railroad” network, said a long-time activist with more than a decade’s experience on the circuit. (Source)
Praise the Lord Jesus Christ!!!! He has allowed a victory in releasing a brother in Christ. I hope there will be more good news to come.
05/27/2011 North Korea (Time) – North Korea said Friday it will free an American detained for reportedly proselytizing after a visiting U.S. official expressed regret.
Eddie Jun was arrested in November and accused of committing a serious crime against North Korea, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said. Pyongyang didn’t provide details about the alleged crime, but South Korean press reports say Jun, a Korean-American with business interests in North Korea, was accused of spreading Christianity.
Robert King, the U.S. envoy for North Korean human rights who is visiting the country this week, “expressed regret at the incident on behalf of the U.S. government and assured that it would make all its efforts to prevent the recurrence of similar incident,” North Korea’s news agency said.
King is leading an American delegation trying to verify food supply surveys by the United Nations and U.S.-based charities and see if there are ways to monitor aid distribution. Officials at the U.S. embassies in Seoul and Beijing declined to comment.
Former President Jimmy Carter also asked for Jun’s pardon during a recent visit, the North said.
North Korea gave Jun medical treatment and allowed him to make regular contact with the Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang, which represents U.S. interests in the country, and to talk by phone with his family, the North Korean news agency said. The United States, which fought on South Korea’s side during the 1950-53 Korean War, doesn’t have diplomatic staff based inside North Korea.
Several Americans have been detained in North Korea in recent years, and they were often freed only after high-profile negotiations. During another visit in August, Carter brought home a man sentenced to eight years’ hard labor for crossing into the country from China. Korean-American missionary Robert Park walked into North Korea on Christmas Day 2009 to draw attention to the North’s alleged human rights abuses and to call for the resignation of leader Kim Jong Il.
Americans Laura Ling and Euna Lee were arrested in 2009 for alleged trespassing. North Korea released them after Former President Bill Clinton made a trip to Pyongyang to ask for their freedom.
North Korea officially guarantees freedom of religion, but authorities often crack down on Christians, who are seen as a Western-influenced threat to the government. The distribution of Bibles and secret prayer services can mean banishment to a labor camp or execution, defectors from the country have said. (Source)
