A new North Korean propaganda video discovered by The Voice of the Martyrs (VOM), details the twisted information that the North Korean government provides to agents and citizens, maligning Christians as the “enemy” who are fools, liars, and traitors.
VOM, a Christian nonprofit that defends the rights of persecuted Christians all over the world, translated the video and shared it with Fox News. The propaganda video calls Christians “religious fanatics” and “spies” that are working specifically in collusion with the South Korean government.
The video details the story of Cha Deoksun, who according to the video, was a “religious fanatic.”
Todd Nettleton, the host of VOM Radio and an author of the history of Christianity in North Korea, pointed out that this video is why North Korean Christians are in need of incessant prayer.
“This video illustrates very clearly why it is so important for Christians everywhere to pray for North Korea and for Christians there,” Nettleton pointed out.
“One of the things that is difficult to understand for many Americans is that being a Christian in North Korea is not just following a different religion, or even following Western teaching,” Nettleton added. “The Kim regime is built on the idea that the Kims are divine beings. So being a Christian is treason. The regime understands clearly that North Koreans hearing about salvation through Jesus Christ is a direct threat to their power.”
The video describes Cha as a “spy,” which the North Korean government uses to categorize Christians. The video explains how Cha illegally crossed over into China during the 1990’s ‘Great Famine,’ where she ultimately found God at Suhtap Church.
“Suhtap Church is operated by disguised pastors from the puppet South Korea government’s secret service,” the narrator says, clearly portraying pastors as covert operatives really just spying on the government.
“It harbors homeless illegal trespassers, providing anti-republic (anti-North Korean) religious study, effectively training them as spies.”
The propaganda video repeatedly labels Cha as a “good-for-nothing” fanatic, who was eventually led to return back to North Korea to start an illegal, underground church. The video calls her “naive” for believing in a “superstitious” religion as well as “absurdly trying to establish the ‘kingdom of God.'”
“Being superstitious and unfaithful to the republic, Duksoon naively believed the sermons about a merciful God and became a religious fanatic,” the narrator says.
“She was completely fooled by the enemy,” the narrator adds.
After starting the underground church in North Korea, she was eventually reported by “a good and awakened North Korean citizen,” and was punished.
The propaganda video did not depict how she died, but according to Fox News, VOM believes that “Cha was either executed by firing squad or died in a concentration camp.”
Dan Chung, the co-founder and executive director of Crossing Borders, shared with Fox News that this video details just how paranoid the North Korean regime is of Christianity.
“The video is a prime example of how paranoid the North Korean regime is about Christianity in particular,” Chung shared. “The regime knows that there is an underground church in the country that they cannot seem to get rid of, in spite of their many efforts.”
Christian persecution in North Korea
Life for Christians in North Korea is unimaginable.
According to a U.S. State Department report released in January of 2018, there are between 80,000 and 120,000 North Korean Christians imprisoned in the country alone.
Zoe Smith, the head of advocacy at Open Doors UK and Ireland, pointed out that not only is there mass persecution taking place in North Korea, but the conditions are downright inhumane.
“Open Doors estimates that around 70,000 Christians are interred in prison and labor camps, facing unimaginable torture, inhumane and degrading treatment purely because of their faith,” Smith said, according to Christianity Today. “The systematic persecution of Christians is just one of many heinous human rights violations perpetrated by the North Korean regime.”
Cha’s story is not an isolated incident. There are hundreds of thousands of Christians in North Korea that face persecution on a daily basis. Pray for each of the imprisoned Christians, that their faith would keep them strong and unwavering in who they are. Pray that the government would have a radical change of heart, and realize how wrong it is to suppress and persecute others for simply believing how they see fit to believe.