Protestors Rally in London to Support North Korean Christian Facing Execution

|TOP|A North Korean Christian who faces execution for expressing concern over the situation in his Communist-run nation was given overwhelming support by protestors that gathered outside the North Korean Embassy in London Friday.

Songs were led by the internationally-known artist Graham Kendrick, while prayers and chants were said in English and Korean for 48-year-old Son Jong Nam.

UK-based advocacy group Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), which co-organised the rally, reported about a protestor who was bound to a tree outside the Embassy with three strips of cloth, in imitation of a North Korean execution.

“His Head was shrouded in a symbolically blood-stained cloth, giving a striking representation of the effect of the bullets typically fired by three marksmen at the head, chest and stomach of victims of execution in North Korea,” CSW told BosNewsLife.

|AD|A letter expressing concern over Son’s situation was read over the microphone to the crowd and later delivered via the Embassy’s postbox.

“We urge you to take immediate and effective steps to ensure international law is respected and that the breaches of these laws in the case of Mr Son are remedied as a matter of urgency.”

Meanwhile, another protest for Son was held in South Korea on the same day, where 24 organisations urged the National Human Rights Commission to save the life of Son Jong Nam.

Mr Son’s campaign coincides with North Korea Freedom Week, a series of events underway in Washington D.C, including a rally at Capitol Hill and all-night prayer vigil, aimed at highlighting the North’s poor human rights record.

U.S. President George W. Bush was said to meet several North Korean defectors on Friday and also see Sakie Yokota, the mother of Japanese schoolgirl Megumi Yokota, who was kidnapped nearly 30 years ago by North Korean agents.

Christians are often persecuted in North Korea, as the nation’s Stalinist system is based on devotion of the individual to an ideology promoted by the late leader Kim Il Sung and his successor and son, Kim Jong Il. Whoever opposes the ideology, which largely resembles a religion of cult, are delat with severely, often ending up in prison camps. Despite the risks, tens of thousands of practice Christianity in North Korea.