North Korean Anti-Christian Propaganda Video Leaked: Features Priest Terrorizing Mother, Child
Internet hackers have reportedly gained a livestream of a television program from North Korea, the world's most oppressive country for Christians, which depicts a priest terrorizing a mother and a child in a ballet performance.
The hour-long video, which Premier said has not been verified, was apparently taken from the North Korean state television channel, and uploaded on YouTube.
One of the scenes depicted at the 13-minute mark features a Western priest wearing a giant cross around his neck, approaching the mother and child with a kind demeanor. The mother seemingly accepts the priest's faith as he makes the sign of the cross on her. She then has her son accept as well. Later, when the boy is alone, the priest abuses him and eventually kills him. The scene ends with large words displayed in the back stating, "Don't forget the brutality of U.S. Imperialism" (translated).
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"While we are unable to verify the source of this video, it is certainly in keeping with the North Korean regime's horrific propaganda against Christians," said Ben Rogers, East Asia team leader at advocacy group Christian Solidarity Worldwide.
"North Korea is the world's worst place in which to be a Christian — there is no religious freedom whatsoever, Christians meet in secret and if they are discovered face severe punishment in the prison camps, and the regime instills in the population through propaganda a hostility to Christianity," Rogers added.
"The regime is well known for using theater, films, cartoons and other forms of art in its propaganda war against America, South Korea, Japan and Christianity."
Footage from life inside the secretive regime of Kim Jong Un is very hard to come by. The United Nations and human rights organizations have spoken out against the mass-scale human rights abuses believed to be carried out there.
Open Doors has consistently ranked North Korea's treatment of Christians, where simply reading a Bible can lead to imprisonment, as the most oppressive in the world.
Recently, a global alliance of human rights groups called for North Korea to face justice for the crimes against humanity it carries out against Christians and hundreds of thousands of others inside its secretive prisons.
Rogers separately told The Christian Post in an interview earlier in March that as many as 100,000 to 200,000 people "are jailed because of political crimes, and are subjected to the worst forms of torture, slave labor, denial of medical care, sexual violence, and in some instances execution."
"I think the thing that makes North Korea stand out" is that "in most countries where persecution is taking place, Christians can at least exist. Even in very desperate situations, there are churches, they can meet in most places," Rogers told CP.
In North Korea, however, believers are known to have been executed or routinely punished with long prison sentences if officials find out about their faith, or if they are found to be in possession of a Bible or meeting with other Christians secretively.
"But basically, North Korea is one of very few countries in the world where to be a Christian, to be known to be a Christian, to meet with other Christians to worship is impossible," he noted.
The unverified YouTube North Korean propaganda video can be seen here:
