A persecution watchdog is sounding the alarm about the grim and dire conditions for Christians inside North Korea.
The hermit nation has long been one of the most diabolical Christian persecutors, but a new report from Christian Solidarity Worldwide, “North Korea: We Cannot Look Away,” underscores the true gravity of the deteriorating conditions inside the hermit nation.
The document commemorates the 10th anniversary of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry report that previously explored the dangerous state of affairs inside North Korea.
“Ten years on from the publication of the COI’s report, CSW finds that the Kim regime has made no effort to uphold international human rights standards and has taken no steps to participate as an equal and active member of the international community,” a statement from CSW reads. “The situation of human rights in the country remains unchanged at best and may even have deteriorated as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, an increased prioritization of weapons testing and development, the introduction of new domestic legislation, and the continued forced repatriation of North Korean refugees from neighboring China.”
David Simpson, an East Asian advocate for CSW who uses a pseudonym for safety purposes, reiterated to CBN News the worsening state of affairs inside North Korea. He said the original UN report from 10 years ago was important in that it highlighted the human rights atrocities being perpetuated by North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un and other officials.
“The 2014 report showed that we don’t only have to worry about the Kim regime’s nuclear capacity,” Simpson said. “The true cost of the Kim regime’s totalitarian rule is the people of North Korea and how they are affected.”
Under Kim, who came to power after his father, Kim Jong Il, died in 2011, North Korea’s isolation has only intensified. While some previous cooperation existed between South and North Korea, even that modicum of collaboration has evaporated.
“There was a factory right on the border with North and South Korea that was owned by South Koreans, and North Koreans were able to come and work there and gain a wage,” Simpson said. “There was a communications tower where they had a direct cable to Seoul, but Kim Jong Un closed that factory, and he actually blew up that tower in a stunt to show how ruthlessly he intends to come down on religious freedom, and all freedom of expressions, freedom of newspaper, and freedom of any form of expression.”
Simpson gave the example of two high school students sentenced to hard labor for simply watching TV shows. It’s not only entertainment, though. As CBN News has extensively reported, North Koreans aren’t free to unreservedly practice their faith.
“Christian groups and other folks in the country that practice traditional Korean religion … they are executed, they’re exiled, and they’re sent to jail for the possession of a Bible, for holding church services,” Simpson said. “It’s one of the most radical things that people can do in that country and it’s seen [as being a] traitor … and treachery to the government.”
Simpson said Christianity, in particular, is targeted for a variety of reasons. One issue centers on the help North Korean refugees able to escape receive from Christian missionaries in China and South Korea, two bordering nations.
“Chinese missionaries take extreme risks to help North Koreans,” he said. “So, it’s common for the first people in the outside world for North Koreans to have contact with are Christians. So, Christians are the one[s] who are telling them, ‘You’ve been sold a lie and you’re living in a hermit, isolated kingdom, and this is what the real world’s like.’”
This obviously isn’t seen as a positive by North Korean government officials looking to continue their horrific rule. Beyond that, Simpson said South Korea has a very large Christian population as does the U.S. With both nations standing as enemies of North Korea, this plays a role in views on the faith.
Third, the underground Christian church in North Korea has reportedly been growing and is seen as “completely undermining the authority and the rule” of the government.
One of the most interesting elements, Simpson said, surrounds the discussion over beliefs Kim and other North Korean leaders are deities or, at the very least, elevated to such a place of personality cult where citizens are essentially forced into worship of these governmental figures.
Simpson said this isn’t resonating anymore among some younger North Koreans.
“We were meeting with a 28-year-old who told us that none of his friends believe [that] the current ruler … Kim Jong Un is a deity,” he said. “They follow along and in order to survive, but their parents and their grandparents … would have viewed it slightly differently, and would have had more reverence and maybe even beatification of the more senior Kim rulers in previous generations.”
Simpson and CSW are hoping “North Korea: We Cannot Look Away” helps shed further light on the chaos inside North Korea, helping educate the world about the troubling situation within its borders.
“There’s a complete dehumanization of the people there, and we cannot look away from the people, from their humanity, and from their suffering,” he said.
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