Islam - Current Day > The Bible on FB = blasphemy in Pakistan; War and Famine facing Christians in Sudan, again

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Pakistan: Christian charged with blasphemy for Bible verses

post on Facebook, Christian families flee their homes

JUL 10, 2023 8:00 AM BY ROBERT SPENCER

Islam mandates death for non-Muslim subjects of the Islamic state who mention “something impermissible about Allah, the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), or Islam” (‘Umdat al-Salik, o11.10), and such laws are based upon passages in the Hadith and Sira in which Muhammad orders the murders of people who have insulted him.

These include Abu Afak, who was over one hundred years old, and the poetess Asma bint Marwan. Abu Afak was killed in his sleep, in response to Muhammad’s question, “Who will avenge me on this scoundrel?” Similarly, Muhammad on another occasion cried out, “Will no one rid me of this daughter of Marwan?” One of his followers, Umayr ibn Adi, went to her house that night, where he found her sleeping next to her children. The youngest, a nursing babe, was in her arms. But that didn’t stop Umayr from murdering her and the baby as well. Muhammad commended him: “You have done a great service to Allah and His Messenger, Umayr!” (Ibn Ishaq, 674-676)

Jesus never 'cancelled' his critics. He either ignored them or answered their criticisms with truth. Apparently, these weren't options available to Mohammed.

Then there was Ka’b bin Al-Ashraf. Muhammad asked: “Who is willing to kill Ka’b bin Al-Ashraf who has hurt Allah and His Apostle?” One of the Muslims, Muhammad bin Maslama answered, “O Allah’s Apostle! Would you like that I kill him?” When Muhammad said that he would, Muhammad bin Maslama said, “Then allow me to say a (false) thing (i.e. to deceive Kab).” Muhammad responded: “You may say it.” Muhammad bin Maslama duly lied to Ka’b, luring him into his trap, and murdered him. (Sahih Bukhari, volume 5, book 59, number 369)

Christian in Pakistan Charged with Blasphemy for Bible Post

Morning Star News, July 4, 2023:

LAHORE, Pakistan (Morning Star News) – Police in Pakistan charged a Christian with blasphemy on Friday (June 30) after he posted Bible verses on Facebook that infuriated Muslims, causing dozens of Christian families in a village near Sargodha city to flee their homes.

Tensions flared in Chak 49 Shumaali village, Punjab Province, after 45-year-old Haroon Shahzad on Thursday (June 29) posted on his Facebook page 1 Corinthians 10:18-21, regarding food sacrificed to idols, as Muslims were beginning the four-day festival of Eid al-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice), which involves slaughtering an animal and sharing the meat.

A Muslim villager took a screenshot of the post, sent it to local social media groups and accused Shahzad of disrespecting the Abrahamic tradition of animal sacrifice and likening Muslims to pagans. Eid al-Adha commemorates God providing a lamb for Abraham to sacrifice instead of his son. In the passage posted from 1 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul states that pagan sacrifices are offered to demons.

Shahzad made no comment in the post, inflammatory or otherwise, said Sargodha resident Tahir Naveed Chaudhry, a Christian and former lawmaker.

“The post began circulating in Muslim circles on Thursday, but the situation became tense after the Friday prayers when announcements were made from mosque loudspeakers asking people to gather for a protest,” Chaudhry told Morning Star News.

Chaudhry said that he and other local Christian leaders began monitoring tensions on Thursday evening (June 29) and were in contact with the district administration and police authorities. When they heard that mobs from other villages had begun gathering after the mosque announcements, they informed Sargodha District police, which sent a large contingent to protect the 250-300 Christian families in the village, he said.

“The police reached the village in time and prevented any attack on the Christians or damage to property,” Chaudhry said. “However, the police presence did not deter the mobs from raising inflammatory slogans. Fearing that the situation could get out of hand, a majority of the Christian families fled their homes, leaving everything behind.”

Chaudhry, an attorney and head of his own political party, said that Shahzad went into hiding on Thursday evening (June 29) along with his wife and six children.

“The police registered a case against Haroon on Friday under Sections 295-A and 298, under the pressure of the mobs backed by the extremist Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan [TLP],” he said. “The FIR [First Information Report] is unwarranted, because Haroon had only shared a biblical verse and had made no personal comment that could be deemed blasphemous or inflammatory.”

Section 295-A relates to “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs” and is punishable with imprisonment of up to 10 years and fine, or both. Section 298 prescribes up to one year in prison and a fine, or both, for hurting religious sentiments….

Sudan: ‘Hundreds of thousands of Christians in the jihad-

ravaged Nuba mountains are again facing war and famine’

JUL 10, 2023 9:00 AM BY ROBERT SPENCER

“Make ready for them all that you can of force and of warhorses, so that by them you may strike terror in the enemy of Allah and your enemy…” (Qur’an 8:60)

Sudanese Christians Face Brutal Civil War

by J. Lindner, International Christian Concern, July 7, 2023:

07/07/2023 Sudan (International Christian Concern) – In mid-April 2023, two factions of the Sudan military began fighting each other, placing the civilian population, and especially Christians and members of the Nuba tribe, in great peril.

When the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), led by General Abdul Fattah al-Burhan, representing the Arab-Islamist Muslim Brotherhood-led Deep State of former president Omar al-Bashir, determined to absorb the mostly paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (“Hemedti”) from the eastern Darfur region, the RSF resisted, wanting to keep its paramilitary independence.

Now Darfur’s African tribes are again facing genocide at the hands of Sudan’s Arab militias. As a result, bombs fell on the predominantly Christian-populated Nuba Mountains June 12 for the first time since 2016….

Now “hundreds of thousands of war-weary Christians in the jihad-ravaged Nuba mountains—many of them genocide survivors—are again facing the specter of war and famine,” said the June 21 issue of Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin (RLPB), forcing Sudanese Christians to head south….

The Sun has Entered a ‘Lockdown’ Period, Which Could Cause Freezing Weather, Famine

It was at least 2016 when I began blogging about sunspot activity and its effect on the earth's temperature. The expected solar minimum appeared to have begun last February, at least. This report confirms that and that it has continued into this year. 

By Chris Pollard, The Sun

Our sun has gone into lockdown, which could cause freezing weather, earthquakes and famine, scientists say.

The sun is currently in a period of “solar minimum,” meaning activity, (sunspots) on its surface has fallen dramatically.

Experts believe we are about to enter the deepest period of sunshine “recession” ever recorded as sunspots have virtually disappeared.

Astronomer Dr. Tony Phillips said: “Solar Minimum is underway and it’s a deep one.”

“Sunspot counts suggest it is one of the deepest of the past century. The sun’s magnetic field has become weak, allowing extra cosmic rays into the solar system.”

“Excess cosmic rays pose a health hazard to astronauts and polar air travelers, affect the electro-chemistry of Earth’s upper atmosphere and may help trigger lightning.”

Getty Images

NASA scientists fear it could be a repeat of the Dalton Minimum, which happened between 1790 and 1830 — leading to periods of brutal cold, crop loss, famine and powerful volcanic eruptions.

Temperatures plummeted by up to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over 20 years, devastating the world’s food production.

On April 10, 1815, the second-largest volcanic eruption in 2,000 years happened at Mount Tambora in Indonesia, killing at least 71,000 people.

It also led to the so-called Year Without a Summer in 1816 — also nicknamed “eighteen hundred and froze to death” — when there was snow in July.

So far this year, the sun has been “blank” with no sunspots 76 percent of the time, a rate surpassed only once before in the Space Age — last year, when it was 77 percent blank.

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Angry S Africa Heading for Famine While Forgiving Zimbabwe Heading for Prosperity

Land expropriation failed miserably in Zimbabwe and the new government has wisely reversed courses

South Africa has learned no lessons from Zimbabwe's descent into poverty and seems determined to follow its course

‘Time for Reconciliation Over’: South Africa Votes to Confiscate White-Owned Land

A worker leaves after working at a farm in Eikenhof, South Africa © Siphiwe Sibeko / Reuters

The South African parliament voted on Tuesday in favor of a motion seeking to change the constitution to allow white-owned land expropriation without compensation.

The motion, which was brought by Julius Malema – the leader of the radical Marxist opposition party, the Economic Freedom Fighters – passed by a wide margin of 241 votes to 83 against. 

Several parties – the Democratic Alliance, Freedom Front Plus, Cope and the African Christian Democratic Party – did not support the motion. The matter has been referred to the parliament’s Constitutional Review Committee, which must report back by August 30.

“The time for reconciliation is over. Now is the time for justice,” Malema told the parliament. “We must ensure that we restore the dignity of our people without compensating the criminals who stole our land.”

South Africa has a population of over 50 million people. According to a 2017 government audit, white people own 72 percent of farmland.

Last week, South Africa’s new president, Cyril Ramaphosa, pledged to return the lands owned by white farmers since the 1600s to the black citizens of the country. He added that food production and security must be preserved.

The official opposition Democratic Alliance party (DA) has criticized the motion, saying it will undermine property rights and scare off potential investors.

The DA’s Thandeka Mbabama told the parliament that expropriation without compensation was a way to divert attention from the failure by successive ANC-led (African National Congress) governments.

“It is shocking that at the current rate it will take 35 years to finalize (land) restitution claims lodged before 1998,” said Mbabama, who is deputy shadow minister for rural development and land reform.

It’s been more than two decades since the end of apartheid in the 1990s, and the ruling ANC party is still trying to tackle racial disparities in land ownership in South Africa.

The president of farmers’ group the Transvaal Agricultural Union, Louis Meintjes, warned the country risks going down the same route as Zimbabwe, which plunged into famine after a government-sanctioned purge of white farmers in the 2000s.

“Where in the world has expropriation without compensation coupled to the waste of agricultural land, resulted in foreign confidence, economic growth and increased food production?” Meintjes said, as cited by Australia’s news.com.au.

“If Mr Ramaphosa is set on creating an untenable situation, he should actively create circumstances which will promote famine. His promise to expropriate land without compensation sows the seed for revolution. Expropriation without compensation is theft.”

White farmer gets land back under Zimbabwe's new leader

Farmer Darryn Smart and his family are welcomed back to their farm by workers and community members CREDIT:  FARAI MUTSAKA/AP

A white Zimbabwean farmer evicted by the government of Robert Mugabe has returned to a hero's welcome as the first to get his land back under the new president, in a sign of reform on an issue that had hastened the country's international isolation.

With a military escort, Robert Smart made his way into Lesbury farm about 124 miles east of the capital, Harare, on Thursday to cheers and song by dozens of workers and community members.

Such scenes were once unthinkable in a country where land ownership is an emotional issue with political and racial overtones.

"We have come to reclaim our farm," sang black women and men, rushing into the compound.

Two decades ago, their arrival would have meant that Smart and his family would have to leave. Ruling Zanu-PF party supporters, led by veterans of the 1970s war against white minority rule, evicted many of Zimbabwe's white farmers under an often violent land reform program led by Mugabe.

Farmers, Darryn, left and Robert Smart, right, are welcomed back to their farm 

CREDIT:  FARAI MUTSAKA/AP

Whites make up less than one per cent of the southern African country's population, but they owned huge tracts of land while blacks remained in largely unproductive areas.

The evictions were meant to address colonial land ownership imbalances skewed against blacks, Mugabe said. Some in the international community responded with outrage and sanctions.

Of the roughly 4,500 white farmers before the land reforms began in 2000, only a few hundred are left.

But Mugabe is gone, resigning last month after the military and ruling party turned against him amid fears that his wife was positioning herself to take power. New President Emmerson Mnangagwa, a longtime Mugabe ally but stung by his firing as vice president, has promised to undo some land reforms as he seeks to revive the once-prosperous economy.

Mr Smart is the first to have his farm returned. On Thursday, some war veterans and local traditional leaders joined farm workers and villagers in song to welcome his family home.

"Oh, Darryn," one woman cried, dashing to embrace Mr Smart's son.

In a flash, dozens followed her. Some ululated, and others waved triumphant fists in the air. "I am ecstatic. Words cannot describe the feeling," Darryn told The Associated Press.

Smart's return, facilitated by Mnangagwa's government, could mark a new turn in the politics of land ownership. During his inauguration last month, Mnangagwa described the land reform as "inevitable," calling land management key to economic recovery.

Months before an election scheduled for August 2018 at the latest, the new president is desperate to bring back foreign investors and resolve a severe currency shortage, mass unemployment and dramatic price increases.

Zimbabwe is mainly agricultural, with 80 percent of the population depending on it for their livelihoods, according to government figures.

Earlier this month, deputy finance minister Terrence Mukupe traveled to neighboring Zambia to engage former white Zimbabwean farmers who have settled there.

Meet Hameed: 12yo Yemeni Boy is Battling Cholera after Having 23 Surgeries & Losing Arm

This is a disgraceful exercise in man's inhumanity

and just as disgraceful is the lack of concern of western countries

which just keep selling arms to the combatants as though the

blood of those children was not on their hands

May God have mercy on the beautiful people of Yemen

Arhab, Yemen

A 12-year-old Yemeni boy has undergone 23 surgical operations, including the amputation of his left arm, after falling victim to the war in his country that left him with terrible scars. He is now battling cholera.

Hameed has had a rough childhood. In 2014, the boy was electrocuted when a high-voltage cable fell from a transmission tower during armed clashes in Yemen’s Amran governorate. The shock was enormous, but the kid survived.

For the past several years, he has been in and out of the hospital with various health-related problems.

“Even a slight cough affects him badly. He’s very weak. His elbow has been damaged by frequent falls,” Hameed’s father, Faraj Al-Asadi, told RT.

“As you can see, his neck is injured as well. These tragedies come from war. The boy spent a month in intensive care before regaining consciousness. He’s undergone surgery many times and will need more operations. Look at all his injuries.”

Hameed, his face and body awash with heart-stopping scars, is also battling with repeated cholera infections.

More than half a million people in Yemen have been infected with cholera since the outbreak began in spring, the World Health Organization (WHO) said last week. 

"The total number of suspected cholera cases in Yemen this year hit the half a million mark, and nearly 2,000 people have died since the outbreak began to spread rapidly at the end of April," the WHO said in a statement. 

Yemen's cholera epidemic is currently the “largest in the world,” the WHO says. The disease has been spreading like wildfire due to worsening hygiene and sanitation conditions and disruptions to the water supply across the country. Local residents are cut off from clean water.

“Half of the people who are affected by the cholera are children, and a quarter of the people who have died from suspected cholera cases are children," Marie Claire Feghali, regional communications manager with Red Cross, told RT.

A few key reasons contributed to the deadly disease outbreak in Yemen.

“Everything in the country has collapsed. That includes the water system, the health system, it also includes the fact that there’s no garbage collection in the country. Cholera is a water-borne disease. When you don’t have garbage collection, when you don’t have proper treatment of the water, it’s a whole number of factors that cause this cholera outbreak to be as serious as it is and as it was.”

“The situation in Yemen in general is extremely bad. It’s a man-made situation. It’s due to the fact that there’s a war going on in the country and there are people, who are civilians, who are paying the highest price,” Feghali said.

Yemen's ongoing conflict and a “man-made” humanitarian catastrophe has “no end in sight,” the head of the UN Development Program (UNDP) in the war-torn country said in August, warning that nearly 7 million people are at risk of starvation.

Around 70 percent of Yemenis are in urgent need of humanitarian aid. Roughly 60 percent have no prospects of securing their next meal as nearly 7 million “are close to slipping into a state of famine,” Auke Lootsma, UN Development Programme (UNDP) Country Director said earlier this month. 

The Saudi-led coalition launched its aerial bombing campaign in support of the ousted Yemeni president, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, in March 2015. The campaign targets the remnants of the country’s military loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh and the Houthi rebels. The casualties in the fighting have surpassed 10,000 dead and 40,000 injured by January 2017, according to the UN estimates, with civilians making up a large share of victims. The bombing failed to bring victory to the Saudi-backed side in the conflict, but devastated Yemeni cities and infrastructure.

"Since March 2015, OHCHR has documented 13,609 civilian casualties, including 5,021 killed and 8,588 injured. These numbers are based on the casualties individually verified by the UN human rights office in Yemen," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) spokesman Rupert Colville said in July. 

Colville, however, noted at the time that the “overall number” of civilians killed could be much higher and estimated it to be over 11,000.

Some two-third of the verified civilian deaths were caused by Saudi-led coalition airstrikes, while the rest of the victims were killed by Houthi rebels and terrorist groups Islamic State and Al-Qaeda, Colville told Anadolu Agency. 

Leading humanitarian organizations have named the aerial bombing the main cause of civilian deaths in the country.

The Saudi-led coalition has struck civilian targets on numerous occasions, but acknowledged only few of the attacks, calling them “mistakes” caused by “bad intelligence.”

The military campaign is supported by a tight air and naval blockade on Yemen, backed by the US. The situation has effectively led to healthcare collapse, according to Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O'Brien.

A UN report, leaked last week, indicates that Riyadh-led coalition strikes have resulted in hundreds of Yemeni children being killed or maimed. The confidential draft was to be presented by the UN Secretary-General, but it was first seen and published by Reuters and Foreign Policy (FP) magazine. The report alleges, that Saudi forces and their Gulf allies were complicit in over half of the deaths and injuries of children in Yemen last year.

“The killing and maiming of children remained the most prevalent violation” of children’s rights in Yemen, the 41-page paper says, as cited by FP. “In the reporting period, attacks carried out by air were the cause of over half of all child casualties, with at least 349 children killed and 333 children injured,” the report added, urging that Riyadh and its allies be added to a black list of countries violating children's rights.

video 2:50

Millions at Risk as Famine Grips Parts of South Sudan

Otherwise fertile country disrupted by prolonged civil war,

economic crisis

The Associated Press 

A mother holds her child in a hospital ward in Juba, South Sudan, on Jan. 24. Roughly 5.5 million people in South Sudan are expected to be severely food insecure and at risk of death in the coming months. (Siegfried Modola/Reuters)

​Famine has been declared in two counties of South Sudan, according to an announcement by the South Sudan government and three UN agencies, which says the calamity is the result of prolonged civil war and an entrenched economic crisis that has devastated the war-torn East African nation.

The official classification of famine highlights the human suffering caused by South Sudan's three-year civil war and even as it is declared President Salva Kiir's government is blocking food aid to some areas, according to UN officials.

More than 100,000 people in two counties of Unity state are experiencing famine and there are fears that the famine will spread as an additional one million South Sudanese are on the brink of starvation, said the announcement.

"Our worst fears have been realized," said Serge Tissot, head of the Food and Agriculture Organization in South Sudan. He said the war has disrupted the otherwise fertile country, causing civilians to rely on "whatever plants they can find and fish they can catch."

Roughly 5.5 million people, or about 50 per cent of South Sudan's population, are expected to be severely food insecure and at risk of death in the coming months, said the report. It added that nearly three-quarters of all households in the country suffer from inadequate food.

If food aid does not reach children urgently "many of them will die," said Jeremy Hopkins, head of the UN children's agency in South Sudan. Over 250,000 children are severely malnourished Hopkins said, meaning they are at risk of death.

A UN peacekeeper from Ethiopia patrols a disputed area between Sudan and South Sudan on Dec. 14, 2016. When South Sudan fought for independence in 1998, the territory suffered from a famine spurred by civil war. (Albert Gonzalez Farran/AFP/Getty Images)

Drastic decline

It is not the first time South Sudan has experienced starvation. When it fought for independence from Sudan in 1998, the territory suffered from a famine spurred by civil war. Anywhere from 70,000 to several hundred thousand people died during that famine. But Monday's declaration of starvation is solely South Sudan's creation, and a UN official blamed the country's politicians for the humanitarian crisis.

"This famine is man-made,"said Joyce Luma, head of the World Food Program in South Sudan. "There is only so much that humanitarian assistance can achieve in the absence of meaningful peace and security."

Perhaps nowhere else has civil war caused such a drastic decline in South Sudan's food security than in Central Equatoria state, according to the report. Traditionally South Sudan's breadbasket, Central Equatoria has been hit by fighting and ethnically targeted killings that began in July 2016 and have displaced over half a million residents and disrupted agricultural production. As a result, more than a third of Central Equatoria's population is now facing crisis or emergency levels of hunger, according to the report.

A United Nations plane releases sacks of food during an airdrop close on Feb. 18. Tens of thousands of people have died since civil war broke out in 2013, and the UN warns that South Sudan is at risk of genocide. (Siegfried Modola/Reuters)

Fertile land

South Sudan's widespread hunger has been compounded by an economic crisis as well. South Sudan is experiencing severe inflation and the value of its currency has plummeted 800 per cent in the past year, which has made food unaffordable for many families. When The Associated Press visited the western town of Aweil in September, the price of food had risen ten-fold in the previous 12 months.

Although it is not as significant as the effects of war and inflation, some of South Sudan's hunger crisis is the direct result of the government's action. South Sudanese government officials have blocked or placed constraints on the delivery of food aid to areas of the country, according to a UN official who insisted on anonymity because of lack of authorization to speak to the media. On Monday, the UN agencies said that unimpeded humanitarian access "is urgently needed."

Tens of thousands of people have died since civil war broke out in December 2013, and the UN warns that South Sudan is at risk of genocide. Since fighting in the capital of Juba killed hundreds of people in July, the war has uprooted more than three million people.

South Sudan - a fertile land

UN officials have contested that hunger in South Sudan is even more shocking because of the country's fertile land conditions. During her farewell briefing in November as head of the UN mission, Ellen Loj said that South Sudan has the resources and climate to feed itself.

"When I am flying up country I am always surprised to see all that fertile land and there is not anything," Loj said. "You could feed yourself plenty and I hope peace will come to South Sudan." 

North Korea Defector Realized Her Country is a Lie

BY ADRIAN HUMPHREYS, NATIONAL POST

Watch Hyeonseo Lee

“It is ridiculous, the hairstyle he has, everything,” says Hyeonseo Lee.

She is talking about Kim Jong-un, the supreme leader of North Korea and in her old life, before her defection from the tightly controlled regime, saying such a thing would condemn her and her family to prison or to death.

“I could kill three generations of my family,” she says.

Lee defected at 17, embarking on a perilous journey. Now 34, she has finally written her account of life and escape from the Hermit Kingdom in a new book, The Girl With Seven Names.

The woman was raised in a relatively privileged manner, a middle-class existence because of her stepfather’s job with the North Korean military, but even so she attended her first public execution at the age of seven — a stark lesson in obedience.

Seeing a man hanged under a railway bridge — one of many such public executions that are mandatory for people to see, she says — was only one of the grotesque means of control the regime waged against its citizens.

As in many authoritarian countries, for example, Lee’s family displayed portraits of the ruling family in their home, first Great Leader Kim Il-sung, then his son and heir Dear Leader Kim Jong-il and, later, his son and heir Kim Jong-un. The government gave them a special cloth for cleaning the portraits and nothing else. The pictures had to be the most prominent in any room, hung the highest, perfectly aligned and on a wall containing no other adornment.

Kim Jong-un

Once a month, Lee says, officials wearing white gloves would visit every house in her neighbourhood to inspect the portraits. If one was dusty or improperly hung, the family would be punished. It was with the portraits, one under each arm, that her stepfather emerged — blackened and coughing — after running back into their burning house, risking his life for their preservation.

“It was genuine (respect) and fear mixed together,” says Lee.

“They had to show they were loyal to the regime in order to survive.”

But people also knew no other life, had no access to information beyond what they were told by the state and dissent was absent from any discourse.

Things changed when famine struck in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union. At first, Lee was shielded from its effects, both because military ties allowed her family access to food and because of the propaganda of the regime, she says.

The government initiated a wide public education campaign — “Let us eat two meals a day” was the slogan, accompanied by information on how eating less was healthier.

As food distribution worsened and after the death of her stepfather, who had been arrested by military police on suspicions about his business deals and apparently killed himself while in hospital, the intense impact of famine became obvious.

“I saw people dying on the street. I was shocked. If we went near the train station or under the bridge we can easily see those dead bodies everywhere and the smells of decomposing bodies,” she says.

It troubled Lee not just emotionally, but intellectually.

All her education and the propaganda told her North Korea was the greatest country on Earth, its leader could change the weather and her homeland was a beacon of light in a world immersed in darkness.

“I believed we were the most privileged human beings — but they are dying from starvation on the street? It didn’t make sense to me at all,” she says.

When her family moved to the northern city of Hyesan, just across the Yalu river from China, the lies became irreconcilable. Stray signals from China could be captured on her television set and, in a locked room with blankets covering the windows, she would watch and see a different world.

Then there were the lights, twinkling across the river in the Chinese town of Changbai.

“We were suffering severe power shortages every night, but China has brilliant lights at night and even neon signs. I wanted to find out the answer myself by seeing the real life in China with my own eyes and I was very young, naive girl at the time so I was brave. I took the huge risk by crossing the border.”

She did not intend to defect.

One thing I could never handle was being separated from my family. It was very sad; living in South Korea — so close but very far away

The frozen river was narrow near her home and could be crossed with ease. She intended a “sneak visit,” she says, to see China, visit her father’s relatives there and return.

But in China she saw her upbringing had been a lie. For the first time, she heard people speaking openly about the North Korean regime. She heard Kim Jong-un called a “bastard” and the country’s starvation blamed on his failed economic policy.

“It was shocking to me; how can you make fun of our Dear Leader like that?” she says. And at first it was hard to accept, she still wanted to respect her country — a common thing, she learned, for those who have just fled North Korea.

She says now she knows how naive she was, about that as well as how hard her journey would be. Walking across the river was perhaps the easiest part.

In China she lived illegally, moving from place to place, taking on waitressing jobs, dating a policeman for her protection. She changed her identity several times. (She chose the name Hyeonseo Lee when she reached freedom. “Hyeon” means sunshine, she explains, “seo” means good fortune.)

Even when finally living in South Korea, settling in its capital, Seoul, she was tortured by constant thoughts of her mother and brother still in the north.

“(They) suffered a long time in North Korea because of me,” she says. They weren’t sent to prison but struggled under censorship and restrictions, with spies sending reports on her mom’s schedule to officials every day.

“One thing I could never handle was being separated from my family,” she says. “It was very sad; living in South Korea — so close but very far away.

“The farthest place.”

She decided she must try to free her mother and brother. Their escape, however, was not as simple as a walk across a frozen river. Lee was held by a smuggling gang and forced to pay large fees as she tried to arrange their passage.

When her family finally made it across the border into China, they narrowly escaped arrest and deportation. Leaving China, they were arrested in Laos and could not pay the bribe demanded for their release until an Australian man hearing their ordeal went to a bank machine and paid it for her.

They are almost the forgotten people

After that Lee and her family, like many defectors, were silent for a long time, fearing for others still in North Korea.

But in 2013, she decided to share some of her story in a TED Talk — a rare public account of life in the secretive country told directly in English. It caused a sensation.

There have been other accounts, usually mediated by translators. One of the most prominent defectors, Shin Dong-hyuk, told an eye-popping story of being born to two inmates in a notorious prison camp, where he lived, worked as a slave and was tortured until his daring escape.

It was an account he revised this year, however, with an admission he had exaggerated and fabricated parts of his story.

That hurts all defectors, says Lee.

“The original story is good enough without embellishment,” she says. “Western media want to hear very shocking stories … (and) some defectors are exaggerating or making up stories or taking other people’s stories as their own.”

But that should not detract from the real stories of defectors and, more importantly, of those still living in the Hermit Kingdom.

“Millions of North Koreans are … suffering under the dictatorship and not knowing of the reality of the outside world,” she says. “They are almost the forgotten people.”


National Post