North Korea Continues to Make Threats as Christians Suffer

ICC Note: As the world turns it’s attention to North Korean threats of nuclear war it is high time that more attention be paid to the extensive human rights violations perpetrated by the North Korean regime on a daily basis. Long considered the world’s worst persecutor of Christians, estimates place the number of imprisoned Christians at between 30,000 and 70,000. Once known as the Jerusalem of the East and a center of Christianity in Asia, the Communist regime run by the Kim family has tried to crush Christianity into oblivion for more than half a century. 
4/8/2013 North Korea (MNN) – North Korea is setting a megaphone in front of the saber it’s rattling.
On Friday, the North Korean government said it would not be able to guarantee the safety of embassies after April 10, and suggested that Russia, China, and Great Britain consider evacuating their diplomats.
Tensions have been on the rise since the United Nations imposed harsher sanctions following Pyongyang’s third nuclear test on Feb. 12. The rogue state expressed fury over ongoing U.S.-South Korean military exercises and threatened a nuclear strike against the U.S. It also scrapped the Korean War armistice, began moving missiles, and restarted a plutonium reactor capable of producing more fuel for nuclear bombs.
One concern is that North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has something to prove. He’s still tightening his grip on power and is something of a military unknown.
While the situation appears to be serious, governments are playing down the rhetoric from North Korea, assuming it represents yet another tantrum by a regime starving for attention, legitimacy, and economic aid. Spokesman for the Voice of the Martyrs USA Todd Nettleton describes the typical pattern. “The world community makes some concessions. They deliver some food or they lower the sanctions or they deliver some oil, and the crisis magically goes away until the next time North Korea needs something.”
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North Korea is the worst perpetrator of persecution against Christians in the world. Christians are tortured, imprisoned, and murdered. Private, non-state-sanctioned religious activity is prohibited. Anyone discovered engaging in clandestine religious activity is subject to arrest, torture, or even public execution.
As many as 100,000 believers are thought to worship secretly. Possessing a Bible, saying the words God or Jesus, and meeting together are all offences punishable by death. VOM reports estimate that of the hundreds of thousands incarcerated in labor and concentration camps, about 30,000 are Christians.
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