For the last several months I’ve been haunted by a story I read in the UK Guardian.
 
The article, excerpted and edited from the recently published book “Escape from Camp 14” by Seattle journalist Blaine Harden, tells the astounding tale of Shin Dong-hyuk. And it vividly illustrates mankind’s limitless capacity for inhumanity.

 
Having deliberately isolated itself from the rest of the world, much of what happens inside the “Hermit Kingdom” is shrouded in secrecy. What little is known paints a grim picture. Open Doors ranks North Korea as the worst country in the world with respect to religious persecution:
 

Still the most hostile country in which to live and practice the Christian faith, there are reports of many Christians arrested, with at least 25 percent of Christians believed to be languishing in labor camps for their refusal to worship founder Kim Il-Sung’s cult. Half the population lives in the north, close to China, where family-based networks of house churches exist in significant numbers. Roughly ten million inhabitants are malnourished, with thousands eating only grass and bark.

While North Korea denies their existence, there at least 10-12 known forced-labor prison camps which hold more than 154,000 prisoners (US state department puts the number as high as 200,000).
 
The biggest installation is 31 miles long and 25 miles wide, an area larger than the city of Los Angeles. Camps 15 and 18 have re-education zones where detainees receive remedial instruction in the teachings of Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-sung, and are sometimes released. The remaining camps are “complete control districts” where “irredeemables” are worked to death.
 

 
The horrific nature of these camps is almost unfathomable. Harden’s description conjures an alternative universe where humans are essentially rats in a maze. It’s not just that the prisoners are denied food, healthcare or basic hygiene, they’ve deprived of their basic humanity.
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It doesn’t appear that anything has improved in the country since Kim Jong Un succeeded his father Kim Jong Il last December.
 
Another account detailing the tragic conditions in North Korea has just been published: “Escape from North Korea: The Untold Story of Asia’s Underground Railroad.” by Melanie Kirkpatrick. Life outside of the camps isn’t significantly better for the average North Korean, but fortunately some of them have actually managed to flee the country.
In his review of the book, former Ambassador John Bolton maintains that;

North Korea’s continued existence is a blot on the consciences of the United States and other Free World nations.
 
Not only does the ludicrously named Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) continue its nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile programs unchecked, but the oppression and misery of its citizens remain unequalled.

 
“Escape from North Korea” compares the situation of refugees from the DPRK to the that of the slaves in pre-Civil War America fleeing the South via the Underground Railroad.

Unfortunately for DPRK refugees, however, they escape not into relatively benign American free states or Western Europe, but into China, which Kirkpatrick rightly labels “another circle of hell.” Today’s Underground Railroad faces hostile Beijing authorities, and is accordingly run covertly, often by ministers and churchgoers, at great personal risk. As Kirkpatrick says, the first rule of survival for a North Korean reaching China is “find a Christian.”

 
Not coincidentally, the majority of leaders and supporters of the Abolition movement, and the Underground Railroad conductors, were… yes, Christians.
 
Bolton goes on in his article to propose diplomatic solutions that China, South Korea and the U.S. could take to alleviate the sad plight of the refugees and ultimately facilitate the collapse of the DPRK.
He concludes with this:

“Escape from North Korea” may someday be compared to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin for blowing the lid off the DPRK gulag. In the meantime, anyone who wants to be truly knowledgeable about Korea or China has an obligation to read Kirkpatrick’s book. And if, after reading it, anyone disagrees with her conclusions, shame on him.

 
 

Although the original Guardian story that I mentioned above – about Harden’s book on Shin Dong-hyuk – is no longer available online (due to copyright expiration), several other news sources reported on it this past spring.
 
Here’s an excerpt from a Washington Post piece about the worst of the prison camps, the one in which Shin spent the first 23 years of his life:

In Camp 14, children are punished for the political sins of their fathers. Hunger is so omnipotent that every prisoner behaves like “a panicked animal” at mealtimes. Teachers at the camp school beat students to death for minor infractions. Medieval torture devices are employed in dungeon-like underground cells. And human relationships are so degraded that prisoners inform on family members.

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North Korea is a country that has “eliminated” God and replaced Him with an inhumane “Dear Leader.” The suffering of the DPRK people tragically illustrates the utter depravity of this philosophy.
 
Pray that more and more North Koreans are able to escape and “find a Christian.” And that the entire country may find the Savior.
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Related:
The Evilest Empire

North Korea: Economic System Built on Forced Labor ~ Even Children Must Work or Face Detention Camps.