North Korea Tops World Watch List as Most Dangerous Country for Christians
According to the recently released World Watch List by persecution watchdog group Open Doors USA, North Korea remains the number one oppressor of Christians for the fourteenth year. The Christian Post reports that, despite the increasing threat of the Islamic State, Open Doors still puts North Korea at the top of the list for the atrocities it commits against Christians. Open Doors CEO David Curry told The Christian Post in an interview why North Korea remains the greatest threat to Christians. “Getting information out of North Korea is notoriously difficult. That is what makes the fact that it remains number one on the World Watch List even more amazing. We don’t even know how many Christians have been martyred in North Korea. Yet, it remains at the top. That’s because it uses all of the powers of its government to suppress Christian faith, to punish even the most basic of things such as owning a Bible,” Curry explained.
Curry added that North Korea imprisoned over 70,000 Christians this year and executed many as well.
“You have executions — we don’t know how many, but we know of enough. There has been no let up in persecution in North Korea,” he added. There are also reports of labor camps in North Korea where prisoners are kept in horrific conditions. Parents in North Korea are refraining from passing on their faith to their children for fear the children will be careless and speak of it in hearing of a government official.
Jailed Pastor Saeed Abedini among Prisoners Being Released by Iran
(RNS) Saeed Abedini, a pastor jailed in Iran since 2012 for allegedly trying to set up house churches, was one of four Iranian-Americans freed on Saturday (Jan. 16) in a prisoner deal with the U.S. linked to the nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers. Abedini’s cause has been championed by Christians in the U.S., especially evangelicals, who have pressured the Obama administration to work for his release. The president was frequently criticized for not making Abedini’s release a condition of the pact aimed at preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. But for some of Abedini’s supporters his cause was complicated when his wife, Naghmeh, last November revealed that her husband had abused her physically, emotionally and sexually, for years and was addicted to porn. Nahmeh Abedini was among the first to report his release via Twitter. Iran first announced that it released four Iranian-Americans, and in exchange the U.S. said it would drop or stop pursuing charges against seven Iranians for violating sanctions against Teheran. The first prisoner to be confirmed was Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, who spent 18 months in Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison. Iranian media then reported that Abedini, 35, from Boise, Idaho, was also among those freed. The two other two freed are Amir Hekmati, 32, a Marine veteran from Flint, Mich., imprisoned since August 2011; and a man named Nosratollah Khosavi-Roodsari, whose imprisonmnet had not been publicized. The other Iranian-American who had been known to be in Iranian custody, Siamak Namazi, a businessman in his 40s, who has been held without any known charges since October, was not included in the deal. American officials had pushed to include the release of the prisoners in the nuclear deal worked out last year but were unsuccessful. There were expectations that improving ties following the deal could lead to their release, and Saturday’s developments came as the International Atomic Energy Agency prepared to certify Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal. That it turn triggered steps to lift U.N. sanctions against the country and return an estimated $50 billion in frozen Iranian funds. Tens of billions more in frozen funds are to be used to pay Iranian debts.