How Christians are being persecuted in North Korea

By Success Kanayo Uchime, Special to ASSIST News Service

NORTH KOREA – It’s very disheartening to note the level of persecution of Christian in North Korea, even in the hands of the government officials who’re supposed to protect them in accordance with the country’s constitutions.

But incidentally the opposite is the case in a country where every citizen is supposed to have fundamental rights in terms of rights to worship their God the way and manner they deem it fit.

Can you imaging a case like that of Jung Eun Hye, a North Korean defector, who is placed under strict surveillance and has faced every kind of persecution from the North Korean security agency? “I had to escape from my country and become a refugee. Despite the thoroughly atheistic education, the incessant anti-religion propaganda and tenacious watch of the government, our family kept our faith.”

According to an Open Doors report, an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 Christians are being detained in various prison camps and that there are a total of about 400,000 believers in North Korea.

The report further said that in North Korea Christians 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 traveling to China to look for food. “Punishment is not limited to the offender, but to three generations of the offender’s family.”

It’s worthy to note, that there are eight political prison camps in North Korea which hold between half a million and a million people and that political prisoners are kept under constant threat of execution.

Also there are about 30 other camps which contain hundreds of thousands of North Koreans who are forced to work every day and two of the camps are together known to cover the same area as the Isle of Wight.

Open Doors report has it that 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.

It stated: “The food shortage combined with the hard labor required of prisoners means they die from starvation and from being overworked. Those who survive do so by eating anything they can find, such as snakes and rats.

As a result of this scenario, Open Doors has initiated an advocacy campaign which would highlight the plight of North Korean refugees and their forced repatriation by China and they request the participation of all Christians by contacting them through their website, http://sb.od.org

Also WCD Media News, a Christian News and Media Agency had sometimes reported that Christians in North Korea live under constant danger of harassment, arrest, and torture and that Christians under that oppressive regime must take many precautions in order to assemble for Bible study or worship, such as gathering in groups of only three or four at a time and covering all the windows.

“If you’re going to have a Christian meeting in North Korea, you have to understand that you’re taking your life in your hands. To be discovered to be a Christian can get you locked up. It can get you executed. So you’re very cautious who you share that information with,” it added.

The irony of the whole scenario is that despite this intense persecution of believers on a daily basis in North Korea, the Christian population in that Communist nation is growing increasingly and is open to the gospel of Christ.

Further to that, although tens of thousands of Christians are imprisoned for their faith in that country, WCD Media News notes that faithful believers continue to persevere by gathering in secret as necessary, to share the truth of the scriptures.

Success Kanayo Uchime is a Nigerian missionary-journalist. He is the President of Kingdom Missions Outreach Inc.(KMO). He holds an Advanced Diploma in Mass Communication, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Nigeria, Masters and Doctoral Degrees in Christian Ministry and Missions respectively from Go Ye Christian University, U.S. A.