North Korea

ICC Note: Please continue to pray for the Christian believes in North Korea who have decided to follow Jesus despite great risk to their life and the lives of their families. No country in the world remains so completely opposed to belief in Christ as the North Korean regime, and it appears after more than half a year with a new ruler nothing is changing soon. 

Foreign media reported that 23 Christians were arrested in May 2010, for belonging to an underground church in Kuwol-dong, Pyongsong City, South Pyongan Province. Reportedly, three were executed and the others were sent to the Yodok political prison camp.

Morgan pointed to a report by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom stating that the North Korean regime is increasingly viewing refugees with religious beliefs or contacts as “potential security threats.” 

 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.

The increased pressure has led to mysterious deaths and assassination attempts seemingly from a cold-war spy movie. On May 30th, 2012 Kang Ho-Bin, a South Korean Protestant Pastor was killed in a head-on car crash at 2 PM in the afternoon in Dandong on his way to church. The accident, about which Chinese officials have remained mum, comes after an assassination attempt years earlier on him when he was pricked with a poison-filled needle. Kang Ho-Bin’s death is not the first case of a missionary in the area dying under suspicious circumstances.

It appears that the North Korean government is attempting to jam GPS tracking devices attached to balloons filled with Bibles being sent floating over the border. These include Bible's launched by ICC. 

According to this article, North Korean prison camps hold an estimated 200,000 prisoners, most of whom will not survive their imprisonment. There are believed to be several thousand prisoners interned for practicing or spreading Christianity, and in the past reports have emerged of individuals being executed for distributing Bibles and other Christian material. 

"...a consistent portrait emerges of North Korea's six giant kwan-li-so, or "total control camps," where people are sent, often without trial, for offenses including defacing a picture of one of North Korea's leaders, attending a church service or leaving the country without permission. Nearly all are in remote, mountainous regions. Some cover more ground than major cities in the U.S. and Europe." 

The European Parliament has condemned China's forced repatriation of North Korean refugees. This move should help to increase pressure on China to end the repatriations which often lead to the imprisonment or death of those forced to return. In that past, ICC has received reports that North Korean refugees are asked if they have had any contact with Christianity while they where out of the country. If they answer in the affirmative, it can lead to their arrest, as well as the arrest of their families. 

North Korea is universally regarded as the most hostile environment for Christians, Foley notes, so balloon launches provide one of the only ways to do mass distribution of Scripture and gospel messages inside the Hermit Kingdom. 

A new study finds that inmates in North Korea's notorious prison camps were arrested for all manner of trivial crimes, such as dancing with westerners or forgetting to call Kim Il-Sung the "great leader". The study found Christians as well, who along with family members are arrested for practicing or even admitting to their faith. 

"Based on data gathered from North Korean defectors and international human rights groups, we estimate there are approximately 30,000 Christians being held in political prison camps and about 10,000 underground believers who are in hiding throughout the country," Lim Chang Ho, a professor at Kosin University in South Korea, told CBN News. 

The North Korean refugees have been arrested in China, which is planning on deporting them back to North Korea. The refugees face almost certain imprisonment, if not execution, upon their return. The North Korean regime in the past has questioned returning refugees about their activities, including if they have attended any church services. Christianity is completely illegal in the "Hermit" Kingdom, and an estimated 30 to 70 thousand Christians in North Korea are interned in prison camps.

 "Growing up I was told by the authorities that there was no God in this world," Kim recalled. "We were ordered instead to worship Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, the leaders of the country."

Recognizing the inherent threat posed by faith to totalitarian rule and the Kim cult of personality, the DPRK regime has since its inception committed genocide against religious believers and their families.

 There are many indications of the specific intent to destroy religious groups in North Korea.  Those that confess to, or are suspected of, having met with missionaries in China or converting to Christianity are either killed or banished to concentration camps for life along with their entire families, including children, to three generations. Open Doors estimates between 50,000 and 70,000 Christians are imprisoned in North Korea’s concentration camps today.