concern over persecution of Christians in the Communist-run nation, BosNewsLife monitored Sunday, May 7.
In a statement from its headquarters in Ermelo, the Netherlands, Christian advocacy group Open Doors said that one-and-a-half year after it launched the action “Pray for North Korea” 2,154 people agreed to pray at least 10 minutes a week for the troubled country.
North Korea leads the 2006 Open Doors World Watch List of countries with the the world’s worst persecution of Christians for the fourth straight year. In the Netherlands the action is rapidly spreading. Since the beginning of 2006, over 200 prayer partners joined the action to ensure around the clock prayers, seven days a week, the group said.
Throughout the Netherlands, Open Doors organized provincial North Korea evenings to encourage prayer partners to continue as some of them pray in the middle of the night. Open Doors also began massive distribution of ‘Pray for North Korea’-t-shirts.
"There is a tremendous motivation among those who pray," said Open Doors’ Coordinator Klaas Muurling. "Some people even pray at very difficult times, for instance in the middle of the night," he added.
NIGHTLY PRAYER
One prayer partner praying at night told Open Doors it made him joyful to pray at night for those in need in North Korea, Muurling said.
Open Doors plans to invite North-Korean former prisoner Soon Ok Lee to the Netherlands in November to talk about her book in which she describes her experiences in North Korean prison camps.
Christians often suffer as North Korea’s Stalinist system is based on total devotion of the individual to an ideology promoted by the late leader Kim Il Sung and his successor and son, Kim Jong Il, observers who recently visited the country said.
RELIGIOUS CULT
The ideology largely resembles a religion or cult, and refugees’ accounts say those who oppose it are dealt with severely, often ending up in prison camps. Kim Il Sung, the man recruited in 1945 by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to found the Communist North Korean state, stamped out Christianity and the traditional Buddhism and Shamanism.
His ideology, which preaches self-reliance, is known as Juche, of which the late Kim is the central figure – so much so that the North Korean calendar begins with the year of his birth in 1912. One of the tallest structures in Pyongyang is the Juche Tower, built in Juche 70, or 1982.
The authorities have denied any wrongdoing. Despite the risks there are believed to be likely tens of thousands of practicing Christians.
In one of the latest examples, human rights groups have urged the international community to pressure North Korea not to execute Son Jong Nam, a Christian whose crime was expressing concern over the situation in his country, organizers said. (With Eric Leijenaar reporting from the Netherlands and BosNewsLife Research).
