An October article in the Evangelical news magazine World (LRR) reminds us of the suffering of Christians under a North Korean regime that really does deserve to be labelled “evil”, and reports on the efforts of Western believers to aid them:
In a North Korean prison camp, inmates went about their work in a furnace – backbreaking labor their jailers forced them to perform 18 hours every day. As they worked, many of them appeared to be mumbling under their breath. They were not complaining; they were singing hymns. The prisoners were Christians – locked up for the crime of believing in God. Eventually, a guard noticed a female prisoner singing – and trampled on her face.[…]
Treatment of Christians was especially barbaric. “During the seven years I served in the prison, there must have been thousands of Christians who died as a result of punishment,” Ms. Lee related. “They were treated less than beasts, sub-human beings, being kicked by the boots of prison guards and lashed by leather lashes. The prison guard was telling these people to say, ‘We will not believe in God but we will believe in our leader, Kim Jong Il.’ So many people died because they did not say, ‘We do not believe in God.'”
In an effort to help Korean refugees, Sen. Sam Brownback has urged the State Department to review its policy of not admitting North Korean refugees into America. In response, Arthur E. Dewey, assistant secretary for the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, began a policy review – one that frustrated Brownback staffers say has been going on for eight months with no end in sight.