Those who have joined Christian Voice receive our newsletter every month. In every issue, our newsletter features a column titled, ‘The Persecuted Church,’ which reports on a different country where believers face challenges, alerting our readers to prayer needs for the Christians there.
This year we have run a number of articles looking at the challenges Christians are facing in North Korea. Because of the seriousness of the issue, we are making these articles available online.
First, however, it may be helpful to have some historical background behind the worst totalitarian regime in the history of the world.
A Brief History of North Korea
The ancient principality of Korea was a unified sovereign nation since the 7th century. During and following the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95, Japanese forces occupied the peninsula.
In 1910, Japan officially annexed the nation. It was not until after WWII that Korea finally regained its independence after being liberated by Soviet and American forces. However, this “independence” meant little in practice since the Communist Russians took possession of the industrial north while the United States (under the auspices of the United Nations) took control of the agricultural south. The reason the US took possession of the South was to prevent the Soviets from occupying it in the massive land grab which followed the second world war.
Both the U.S. and the USSR approved Korean-led governments in their respective halves, each of which were favourable to the occupying power’s political ideology. The communist North, known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, supported the government of Kim Il-sung, who had been a Guerrilla fighter with the Chinese Communist forces. The US-supported South, on the other hand, was known as the Republic of Korea and officially came into existence in 1948.
Almost from the beginning of this division, the South had to contend with the North’s guerrilla movement. By the time the guerrillas were defeated, a massive concentration of troops had been amassed along the border on both sides. On June 25, 1950, a North Korean armoured brigade crashed through the line and marched toward the Southern capital of Seoul, beginning the three-year period of conflict known as the Korean War. Communist China assisted North Korea in this bloody war, while American forces fought for the South.
When the armistice agreement was finally signed on July 27, 1953, the borders simply reverted to what they had been prior to the war. To this day, it remains the most heavily fortified border in the world.
Resources
You find download links below, in addition to links to some of our recent website articles and videos about North Korea.
- Kim Jong Il’s Death Highlights Concerns for Christians. This is a report we ran the day that Kim Jong Il’s death was reported. We lamented the bias in much of the mainline media in downplaying Kim Jong Il’s atrocities when covering his death. We used this as an opportunity to highlight his crimes against the Christian in the country.
- Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag. This post gives the background to Kang Chol-Hwan’s chilling exposé of the concentration camp system, together with a video giving satellite images of the country’s concentration camp system.
- Review of Kang Chol-Hwan’s book. This is a PDF download to a full review of The Aquariums of Pyongyan: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag.
- Persecution of Christians in North Korea. This is a PDF download of our February report assessing the situation in North Korea under the new leadership of Kim Jong-un.
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