The Washington Times reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ordered 33 Christian missionaries be killed for associating and assisting South Korean Baptist missionary Kim Jung-wook, arrested last year for starting about 500 underground churches in that country. Kim has charged the missionaries with attempting to overthrow the government.
According to experts, Kim Jong-un intends to make an example out of the converts as a part of ramped up efforts to reinforce his country’s “juche” or self-reliance doctrine and keep out capitalist practices and beliefs. North Korea insists that underground churches was sedition cells funded by South Korea’s National Intelligence Service.
Kim Eui-do, a spokesman for South Korea’s ministry in charge of inter-Korean affairs, said: “It is hard to understand how (North Korea) calls our national (Jung-wook)—who is doing purely religious activities—an anti-state criminal.”
