North Korea has hit back against
discussion of religion in the country. Coming just days after Australian
missionary John Short revealed his side of his detention in Pyongyang, the North
Korean-run website “Uriminzzokiri” stated on the 24th, “Chosun is a
human paradise where the Lord would have nothing to do even if he came.”
It went on, “On the shores of liberated
Chosun, Great Suryeong comrade Kim Il Sung, for whom the people were of the utmost
importance, firmly rejected the sophistries of ‘let’s establish
socialism along the lines of other nations’ and ‘let’s create a bourgeois
republic,’ and instead founded the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in
accordance with the nature of the people and their ardent desires.”
The piece went on to note policies that the
North Korean authorities say contribute to this perfect state of affairs: the elimination
of all forms of taxation, free health care, and free education. “The many touching
things accomplished on this territory eloquently show us just how noble the
fatherly Suryeong’s philosophy truly is,” it stated.
Meanwhile, speaking to The Advertiser last Friday, Australian missionary John Short explained how he had been caught while attempting to leave religious materials in a Buddhist temple in North Korea. He had already managed to pass some of his Korean-language publications to a priest at a church in Pyongyang, and claims to have left hundreds of similar pamphlets on the Pyongyang subway during a previous visit.
Elsewhere, on March 20th Daily NK reported that the authorities in Pyongyang have been organizing lectures and ideological training sessions ever since a press conference in February, during which detained South Korean missionary Kim Jong Wook admitted to “anti-state” crimes. A number of people have reportedly been arrested and dispatched to prison camps for the crime of engaging with religious materials or locations while visiting China.
