There is evil in the world so dark that you can't even fathom it.
A new State Department report from the Office of International Religious Freedom on the cruelty of North Korean authorities shows how brutal the regime is, noting that 70,000 Christians are in prison camps for the crime of believing in Jesus Christ.
In one unbelievable case, authorities sentenced a two-year-old child to life in prison with his or her family:
The Department of State, pulling from information collected by NGOs, noted that an entire family, including their two-year-old child, was imprisoned following the discovery of their religious practices and possession of a Bible.
The family, which was most likely targeted by the Ministry of State Security that handles roughly 90 percent of these cases, was sentenced to life in prison.
Inside the prison camps, where prisoners are starved, beaten, raped, and worked to death, the situation is dire:
A report from the NGO Korea Future documented a shocking incident in which a man caught praying was nearly beaten to death by guards.
North Korea, like all dystopian states, says it respects religious liberty in its official laws: "Freedom of religion is allowed and provided by the State law within the limit necessary for securing social order, health, social security, morality and other human rights."
In reality, North Korea has a government-imposed religion that mixes Marxist atheism with the deification of its supreme leaders, who are regarded as "extraordinary beings." Anyone who defies this state religion, especially the Christians who have continued to grow in numbers post-WWII, is deemed a "hostile class."
Another incident involved a Korean Worker's Party member who was found with a Bible, taken by authorities out to an airfield, and executed before a crowd of thousands.
There is something about the Bible and the name of Jesus that makes demonic strongholds seethe. They cannot stand it. It is a weapon like no other.
