By It is of course impossible to independently verify accusations like this in a country like North Korea, but considering how Christians have been instrumental in the moving of North Korean refugees from China to South Korea I don’t find this exeution hard to believe:
A Christian woman accused of distributing the Bible, a book banned in communist North Korea, was publicly executed last month for the crime, South Korean activists said today.
The 33-year-old mother of three, Ri Hyon Ok, also was accused of spying for South Korea and the United States, and of organizing dissidents, a rights group said in Seoul, citing documents obtained from the North.
The Investigative Commission on Crime Against Humanity report included a copy of Ri’s government-issued photo ID and said her husband, children and parents were sent to a political prison the day after her June 16 execution.
The claim could not be independently verified today, and there has been no mention by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency of her case.
But it would mark a harsh turn in the crackdown on religion in North Korea, a country where Christianity once flourished and where the capital, Pyongyang, was known as the “Jerusalem of the East” for the predominance of the Christian faith. [Mercury News]
12:13 pm on July 25th, 2009 1
She was the luckiest of her family with her husband ,children, and parents being sent to prison. For her, the agony was ended quickly. What a tragedy. And a continuing one for her family at that. I hope the regime falls tommorrow rather that some day in the distant future.
11:11 pm on July 25th, 2009 2
I don't know about you but I'd rather be in a camp getting my butt kicked day in and day out, with little food, moving rocks with some glimmer of hope.