The Terror in North Korea

After North Korea has detonated a third nuclear explosion there has been a lot of attention of North Korea.

Deservedly North Korea is known all over the world for being a particularly horrific authoritarian society.

Here are some resources detailing the depraved evil of the North Korean regime.

This will not be easy reading.

North Korea: exposing the terrors of the gulag. (Assist News).

being a Christian is a serious political crime in North Korea. Some 200,000 'criminals' are incarcerated in the secretive State's gulag, including tens of thousands of Christians. Possession of a Bible is punishable by public execution. To eliminate disloyal family lines, the regime's policy dictates that three generations of any dissident be incarcerated in concentration labour camps where starvation and gross cruelty ensure the death rate is kept high. It is almost beyond belief that this horrific reality could have endured for more than 60 years. Refugee survivors such as Soon Ok Lee have testified that Christian prisoners are treated even more harshly than other political prisoners. As survivors' testimonies become available, the terrors of the North Korean gulag are exposed. ...

[From a CBS report] When three generations of Kang Chol-hwan's family were incarcerated in 1977, he was only 9. Kang survived 10 years in Camp 15 at Yodok. His testimony is remarkably similar to Shin's, except that Kang was released in 1987 after his 'disloyal' grandparents died. Kang subsequently fled to China after being alerted that security police were coming to arrest him for listening to foreign radio broadcasts. Today Kang lives in South Korea, where works as a journalist and human rights advocate. He became a Christian in South Korea,...

 Kang Chol-hwan later wrote a book, The Aquariums of Pyongyang.

North Korea kills two Christians (Mission News Network).

According to the ministry [Open Doors] that serves persecuted Christians worldwide, one Christian died in one of North Korea's notorious labor camps. Estabrooks explains, "In the first case, this man went back voluntarily and began to share his faith quite extensively within the country. Ultimately, he was informed on, arrested, and put in prison." Open Doors contacts followed the case to the labor camps, where--under a regime of hard labor, little food, and torture--he died.

Estabrooks goes on, "The second situation, which we've learned today, was a Christian going back to China for Bible training and was killed by a border guard as he tried to cross the river.

"He was very excited about his new faith and wanted to share the Gospel with his family," says an Open Doors worker. "He wanted to come back to China to study the Bible more so he could explain the Christian faith better to his family. It is heartbreaking that he was killed. I cannot stop thinking: 'If only he had arrived a little later at the border river, the guard would not have seen and shot him. He could still be alive today.'"

Escaped North Korean Refugee Reveals Nation's Desire for Nuclear Weapons, Intense Persecution (Christian Post)

"Timothy," a 24-year old North Korean refugee...has revealed to Open Doors USA, a persecution watchdog group, that he was tortured almost to the point of death for trying to escape to China nine years ago...

"I remember they showed us cartoons and animated movies about bad Christians," Timothy shared of the 15 years he spent in North Korea. "The Christian God was a monster for me. However, when I was 11, I witnessed the public execution of a Christian. His crime was that he had hidden tiny Bibles in the roof of his house."

"The same year a lady was shot," the refugee continued. "She had escaped to China and went to church there, but a North Korean spy discovered her activities. He had her arrested and sent back to North Korea, where she was also killed in public. I am convinced these practices still occur in my country. As for myself, I learned to trust in God. Thanks to Him, I am still alive."

For a more general overview of the North Korea system of oppression seeThe Hidden Gulag by David Hawk, US Committee for Human Rights in North Korea. (PDF.)

It will be a good day when North Korea's vicious and hopelessly dysfunctional dictatorship will come to an end. May that day soon come.

There appears to be some cracks within the regime. They are not invincible.

The North Korean leadership measures most of its decisions against one single overriding standard:  the effect on regime survival. The elites fear if they lose control, the North Korean state will collapse and if that happens, "the South Koreans and Americans will hang us, and if they don't our own people will," Kim Jong Il reportedly told Communist Party leaders in a secret speech in late 1996 at the peak of the Great North Korean Famine (according to an interview I did with a senior defector in 1998)....

A month ago Kim Jong Un purged the vice marshall of the North Korean military, one of the most powerful figures in the army. He did not go quietly: In one report when soldiers were sent to remove him from office, a fire fight broke out with his personal security detail and 30 soldiers died. Last week Kim and his uncle purged the new defense minister, who had only held office for seven months. In July Kim reportedly increased his own personal security to protect himself from any potential assassination plots. Recent graffiti in some parts of the country are openly criticizing Kim's leadership, an exceedingly rare act of dissent usually punishable, for those caught, by a slow death in the political prison camps. (Andrew Natsios, Why North Korea Launched the Missile, US Committee for Human Rights in North Korea)

The day of its fall will be a good day.