Newsline The Cross at the Chinese Border


Nongovernmental organiza- tions (NGOs) estimate anywhere from 30,000 to 250,000 refu- gees from North Korea are living in China, either in border areas or deeper inland. Few are Chris- tians when they emerge from North Korea, but the whispered advice among refugees is to “head for a cross,” signaling a Chinese church that may assist them, according to a National Geographic report.


Since China will not allow the United Nations High Com- missioner for Refugees access to border areas, Chinese Christians work with Christian NGOs to provide an “underground rail- road,” moving refugees via sev- eral routes to safety, most often in South Korea. Chun Ki-Won, director of Christian NGO Duri- hana, admits that some of the refugees adopt Christianity to


30 EVANGEL • JULY 2010


win favor with their rescuers, but others retain and strengthen their faith on arrival in South Korea. China insists that the refu- gees are economic migrants and pays police a bounty to arrest and return them to North Korea. On arrival, North Korean officials pointedly question the refugees about contact with Chinese Christians or Christian NGOs. If any contact is admit- ted, execution or imprisonment is likely, according to David Hawk’s report, A Prison Without Bars. As one refugee told Hawk, “Having faith in God is an act of espionage.”


Still others choose to return to North Korea with Bibles and other Christian resources at great risk to themselves. For example, in June 2009 officials publicly executed Ri Hyon-Ok, caught distributing Bibles in Ryongchon,


a city near the Chinese border, South Korean activists reported. China remains impervious to the refugees’ plight. “China fears being flooded by refugees if they show compassion,” said Suzanne Scholte, cochair of the North Korea Freedom Coalition. “But refugee flows aren’t going to col- lapse the [North Korean] regime. If that was going to happen, it would have happened already during the famine, so their argu- ment doesn’t hold water.” She added that North Kore- ans don’t want to leave. “They leave because of Kim Jong-Il,” she said. “Those [North Korean refugees] in South Korea want to go back and take freedom with them.”


Two U.S. Christians entered North Korea in recent months with the same goal in mind. Robert Park, an evangelical


Christian missionary, crossed the border on December 25, 2009, with a letter calling for Kim Jong- Il to resign. Officials immediately arrested Park, according to the regime’s Korean Central News Agency. He was later sentenced to eight years of hard labor but released in late February 2010, after making what many experts believe was a forced confession. Fellow activist Aijalon Mahli Gomes entered North Korea on January 25, the same news agency reported. Officials sen- tenced Gomes to nine years of hard labor and fined him 70 mil- lion new won (U.S. $518,520). At press time Gomes remained in detention.—Sarah Page


By the Militia


Numbers


National survey conducted by Pew Research Center, April 2010


What is your reaction to each word/phrase?


Negative Positive 65


21


Socialism 59 29 Libertarian 37


38


Capitalism 37 52 Progressive 23 States’ rights 15 Civil liberties 14 Civil rights 10


Family values 9 89


68 77 76 87


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32