China and North Korea collaborate to persecute Christians
Investigative reports show that people who have been forcibly returned from China to North Korea are subject to torture, sexual violence, enslavement and murder.
Hundreds of North Koreans – most of them Christian refugees – have been deported back from China since last year. The Chinese government uses facial recognition technology to track down fugitives, specifically targeting religious individuals. North Korea imposes a harsh crackdown on three-family generations of Christians, which means even if one person is convicted, their descendants will be persecuted, as well.
Greg Scarlatoiu – the executive director of the non-governmental Committee for Human Rights in North Korea – voiced his concern at the hearing of the U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom on the 26th of September: “Any religious belief, and Christianity in particular, as well as South Korea, constitute the only challenges to the Kim regime’s absolute monopoly on power. Christianity offers an alternative way of life that delegitimizes tyranny and transcends oppression. Upon returning back into North Korea, one of the first questions they will be asked by authorities is whether they have met with a missionary during their time in China. This question is not merely a formality. The answer determines the severity of punishment they will endure. If an individual admits to or is found to have had contact with a missionary, particularly one affiliated with Christianity, they’re often subject to the harshest forms of torture and imprisonment.”
Joanna Hosaniak – deputy director general of the Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights – stated: “This persecution needs to be seen in a much wider context – simply put, North Korean leadership is operating a criminal enterprise which enslaves civilians to facilitate production of goods for export, through which it acquires foreign currency to fund the regime and its military programs. China continually supplies slaves for detention facilities. Both political prison camps, which are operated mostly by the MSS [Ministry of State Security], and long-term prisons operated by MPS [Ministry of Public Security], are major production sites that produce goods for export: Textiles, fake eyelashes, labelled ‘Made in China’.”
Based on evidence from the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, around 160,000 people were detained for political crimes in 2020 alone. The report states that “prisoners were subject to murder, extermination, enslavement, forcible transfer, imprisonment or severe deprivation of physical liberty, torture, sexual violence, persecution, enforced disappearance and other inhumane acts. Extensive evidence demonstrated that DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] officials detain individuals for illegitimate reasons, such as exercising basic human rights.”
North Korea ranked number 1 on Open Doors’ 2024 World Watch List of the countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian.
Source: https://morningstarnews.org/