Sanctions Could Hurt North Korea's Persecuted Christians, Author Warns
by Allie Martin
July 20, 2006
(AgapePress) - - Earlier this month after North Korea's communist government test-fired seven missiles, reaction from the international community was swift and included calls for sanctions -- something Christian author and ministry spokesman Paul Estabrooks believes could have a negative impact on Christians and other citizens in North Korea. Estabrooks is with "Open Doors with Brother Andrew" and has just completed a book titled Escape From North Korea, which chronicles a family's flight from that repressive country. Recently, during an interview on Mission Network News, he observed that sanctions against that communist regime could make life even harder than it already is for the North Korean people.
"They've had a famine in the country for the past decade practically," the author noted. "It was especially bad in the middle 90s, just after Kim Il Sung, their first leader died in 1994. His son, Kim Jong Il, is now the leader of the country; and he is appreciated, I think, even less than his father."
Because of the famine and other causes, the North Koreans have had a lot of food shortages, Estabrooks explains. "This is why most people are trying to escape out of the country, initially," he says, "just to get food."
Economic sanctions would hurt everyone in North Korea, the Open Doors spokesman contends. However, he believes imposing them would be particularly detrimental for the nation's Christians, for whom, he points out, the situation is already desperate.
"Historically, North Korea, before the splits after WWII, was known as the Jerusalem of the East: there were so many Christian in Pyongyang," Estabrooks notes. "When the country was divided by that parallel division in 1952, then we lost contact with the church in the North," he says. "Christianity was forbidden."
Open Doors has called attention to the plight of North Korean Christians as victims of some of the most severe religious persecution happening anywhere in the world. The ministry notes that, because believers in the communist nation are seen as political criminals, when they are arrested they are often forcibly compelled to renounce their faith and worship Kim Il Sung.
If these detainees remain faithful and continue to confess Christ, they are often executed; meanwhile, an estimated 100,000 Christians political prisoners are even now in prison.
North Korea is a "dominantly socialist, atheistic society," Estabrooks adds, "and therefore Christians are treated very poorly." According to the latest "World Watch List" published by Open Doors, North Korea has replaced Saudi Arabia as the country where Christians are most severely persecuted.
Allie Martin, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
