The disappearance of some 20,000 prisoners of conscience, and possibly many more, from North Korea's Camp 22-a massive concentration camp neighboring Hoeryong city which was geographically larger than Los Angeles and thought to have once held between 30,000 and 50,000 captives-cannot represent anything less than a Srebrenica-level massacre of an already enslaved and frightfully brutalized population. Satellite photographs indicate that guard posts, interrogation and detention facilities at the camp had been razed last year; by which time those groundlessly accused and exploited had all of a sudden been reduced to about 3,000.

While an estimated 7,000-8,000 prisoners are believed by some observers to have been spirited away at nighttime via train to analogous slave labor/death camps No. 16 (located in a secluded mountain area in Hwasong County), and No. 25 (near the city of Chongjin), the rest remain thoroughly unaccounted for. In an August report, David Hawk of the Washington D.C.-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) stated appertaining to Camp 22's rapid depopulation:  "If even remotely accurate, this is an atrocity requiring much closer investigation."

North Korea's reasons for shuttering this camp-plainly a remorseless and genocidal attempt to divert, cover-up and avoid accountability-should not be a conundrum for anyone. On the basis of voluminous testimony from former camp guards Ahn Myong-chol and Kwon Hyuk, men who not only bore witness to but also themselves carried out acts of genocide and perpetrated crimes against humanity (although it is true these men would have also been killed if they had refused to), worldwide attention has been focused on the international transgressions which took place daily at Camp 22; a literal killing field, the conditions of which are the archetype for the majority of North Korea's prison camps.

Perhaps most shocking amid the revelations of the DPRK's inhumanity provided by Ahn and Kwon's lengthy, detailed confessions (Ahn wrote a book and has been the subject of numerous interviews and studies while Kwon has been the focal point of two investigative documentaries), are assertions of human vivisection, and chemical and biological weapon experiments on prisoners-including the murdering of whole families in poisonous and asphyxiant gas chambers.

The 2004 BBC This World documentary Access to Evil brought before the world eyewitness testimonies and hard evidence (e.g., DPRK documents) suggesting that human experimentation was taking place on a widespread and systematic level inside North Korea's prison camps. The BBC's Olenka Frenkiel spoke at length with Kwon, the former chief of management at North Korea's Camp 22 and former military attaché at the North Korean embassy in Beijing, in addition to victims, North Korean officials, activists and outside observers.

Hyuk was shown sketching an intricate diagram of a North Korean gas chamber, describing it as follows: "The glass chamber is sealed airtight. It is 3.5 meters wide, 3m long and 2.2m high. There is the injection tube going through the unit. Normally, a family sticks together and individual prisoners stand separately around the corners. Scientists observe the entire process from above, through the glass."

He told Frenkiel matter-of-factly: "I watched a whole family being tested on suffocating gas and dying in the gas chamber: Parents, one son and a daughter. The parents were vomiting and dying, but until the very last moment they tried to save the kids by doing mouth-to-mouth breathing. For the first time it hit me that even prisoners are capable of powerful human affection."

When asked how he felt about the children who were being murdered in such a cruel manner, he candidly replied: "It would be a total lie to say I felt sympathy for the children dying such a painful death. In the society and the regime I was under, I just felt they were enemies. So I felt no sympathy or pity for them at all."

Lee Soon-ok, a survivor of Kaechon Concentration Camp (aka Kyo-hwa-so No. 1), further detailed the usage of North Korea's victims as test subjects for chemical and biological warfare: "An officer ordered me to select 50 healthy female prisoners. One of the guards handed me a basket full of soaked cabbage, told me not to eat it but to give it to the 50 women. I gave them out and heard a scream. They were all screaming and vomiting blood. All who ate the cabbage leaves started violently vomiting blood and screaming with pain. It was hell. In less than 20 minutes, they were dead."

The film confirmed testimony from camp survivors going back to the late 1990's, and charges of human experimentation in North Korea continue to be further substantiated by more recent accounts, including those of North Korean chemists, former security officials and former prisoners. For example, in 2005 associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center Abraham Cooper wrote a commentary that was published in the Washington Post about a North Korean scientist he had interviewed in Seoul called Dr. Lee Byom-shik (pseudonym), then 55, who "helped develop deadly agents" and "matter-of-factly described" how he gassed two political prisoners in 1979 while his colleagues took notes. In a separate article about the aforesaid scientist in March of 2004, Barbara Demick of the Los Angeles Times stated that South Korea's Unification Ministry had confirmed his status and vocation as a senior official at a research laboratory in the city of Hamhung and that rights groups found his story to be credible.

In 2002, RENK, an established Tokyo-based NGO, interviewed Dong Chun-ok who was a former nuclear researcher at the Yongbyon Nuclear Research Center where she said research for chemical weapons took place in addition to nuclear development. She stated that in the research laboratories in Hamhung chemical and biological weapon experiments took place on "prisoners or felons by using injections."

Another North Korean defector who was forcibly repatriated from China in 2004, Kang Byong-sop, had claimed to be the chief electrical engineer at a chemical factory in South Hamgyong and to have smuggled out official "letters of transfer" for inmates from Camp 22 to be sent to the chemical complex for the "purpose of human experimentation for liquid gas." Kim Sang-hun, a retired U.N. official and chairman of the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights stated to the Los Angeles Times that he had known members of Kang's family for years, and that after carefully examining the papers, which carried the official stamp of North Korea's State Security Agency, he was "absolutely convinced [the letters] are genuine." Kang is believed to have been hunted and arrested with Chinese-North Korean collaboration on the Chinese-Laotian border with his wife and youngest son after smuggling the documents out of North Korea. He was forced upon repatriation to give a complete retraction and point-by-point counter-story and has not been heard from since. His other son, Kang Seong-kuk, was reported at the time to have narrowly escaped an abduction attempt by North Korean agents in Thailand.

Kim Sang-hun told Al Jazeera in 2009 that "Human experimentation is a widespread practice ... The programme is now a commonly known fact in the North Korean public." Im Chun-yong, a former member of North Korea's elite special forces asserted to Al Jazeera for the same report: "If you are born mentally or physically deficient ... the government says your best contribution to society... is as a guinea pig for biological and chemical weapons testing." His then commander was said to have given up his 12 year old daughter who was mentally disabled for the practice, while another of his colleagues who was guarding a testing facility witnessed "a number of people" murdered via "poisonous gas" in a "glass chamber." In 2006, Ri Kwang-chol, a North Korean physician was reported by Reuters to have said that the DPRK murdered people with physical disabilities "almost as soon as they were born" and that "there are no people with physical defects in North Korea." In May of this year, Joanna Hosaniak of the Citizens Alliance for North Korean Human Rights (NKHR) headquartered in Seoul delivered a report affirming North Korea was presiding over chemical and biological weapon experiments on disabled children based on recent testimony from a high-level North Korean government official who defected in 2012 and corroborated by a former DPRK police officer. The former government official referred to a "Hospital 83" on an island off the coast of South Hamgyong where children with disabilities were being used for "medical tests such as dissection of body parts, as well as tests of biological and chemical weapons."

Witness to Transformation: Refugee Insights Into North Korea, a 2011 study by Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland of the Peterson Institute for International Economics based on interviews with over 1600 North Korean refugees, found that 55 percent of North Koreans queried in China who had experienced incarceration at a DPRK political detention facility believed that prisoners were victims of medical experimentation. The distinct and varied character of refugees' responses to preceding questions suggested that "respondents were not simply providing answers that they had intuited the interviewers wanted to hear."

Camp 14: Total Control Zone, a 2012 documentary by German director Marc Wiese has won a slew of international honors and continues to raise the profile of North Korea's appalling and unparalleled humanitarian and human rights emergency. The hero of the film is Mr. Shin Dong-hyuk, recipient of the 2013 Moral Courage Award from Geneva-based NGO UN Watch and one of the the only known surviving escapees of the wan-jeon-tong-je-kyuk, or "total-control zone" Camp 14 (Kaechon Internment Camp). Shin was born and lived the first 24 years of his life as a slave within the concentration camp, was systematically denied every fundamental human right, suffered unspeakable brutality and witnessed countless executions including those of his own mother and brother. His "crime" was to have had relatives, whom he never knew, that fled to South Korea as refugees during the Korean War.

In addition to Shin-who is the film's sole protagonist-a former member of North Korea's secret police (Oh Yang-nam) and Kwon Hyuk participated in extensive interviews for the critically-acclaimed film which Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) calls "one of the most important documentaries of our time." Wiese told the Guardian in reference to his conversations with Kwon: "I'm convinced he has a sadistic side, because he's smiling. He's talking about rape. It's impossible to smile. Around 50% of the material with him was simply not usable. It was too tough ... If ever a human rights court is established for North Korea, they can have my raw material, and it's enough to sentence them both."

An earlier film by Wiese dealt with the search to find the former Bosnian Serb politician and war criminal Radovan Karadzic. In contrast to the murderers he interviewed for the 2004 film, Wiese told Bloomberg he was "shocked" by the way the former North Korean officials seemed to have no remorse for their deeds-counting mass murder and rape-stating: "These guys were coming and saying, 'I saw a woman, I raped her ... if she refused, I killed her. If she got pregnant, we killed her.'"

Shin's testimony is universally credited as being the main catalyst to have compelled the United Nations to launch an investigation into rights violations U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, with whom Shin met in December of last year, declared in January had "no parallel anywhere in the world," "should be unthinkable in the 21st century," and that "the time had come for a full-fledged international inquiry into serious crimes that had been taking place in the country for decades." The U.N. Commission of Inquiry chaired by Australia's former High Court Judge Michael Kirby is now underway. After hearing numerous testimonies from North Korea's victims who were able to escape, Kirby has been moved to the level of tears and said to reporters last month: "An image flashed across my mind of the Allied soldiers, Russian, American, British, at the end of the Second World War, and the discovery of prison camps in the countries that had been occupied by Nazi forces."

Blaine Harden, author of the internationally best-selling book about Shin Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West, told NPR in 2012 a former North Korean camp guard (most likely Ahn) had said to him that "there were a lot of people in the camps who had it tougher than Shin. Shin had it relatively easy. That's why he was strong, and that's why he had the capacity to get out." The possibility that a significant number of North Korea's prison camp population have had it "tougher" than Mr. Shin may be difficult for non-North Koreans to grasp or imagine. But the point is a salient one for the outside world to begin understanding the sheer gravity of the crimes which have been perpetrated against the North Korean people.

A "full-fledged international inquiry" will be far from complete without careful examination of all existing forms of evidence which suggest that the so-called Democratic People's Republic of Korea has and continues to, in the words of a June 13 White House statement on chemical weapons in Syria, cross "clear red lines that have existed within the international community for decades."

As for the tens of thousands who vanished from Camp 22, it is not difficult to ascertain what happened.

In the words of Kwon:
"If a political prisoner breaks a camp rule, than not only his family, but also the five neighboring families are killed, because of collective responsibility. I once killed 31 people, all the members of five families." (BBC, 1 February 2004)

In the words of Ahn:
"We were repeatedly taught they were the national traitors and we have to eradicate three generations of their families." (Associated Press, 29 October 2008)

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Pray for those who are suffering in the prison camps of North Korea and that the authorities will be moved to shut down these camps that are known to be places of awful torture and death for many. Pray that the international community, especially China, will wake up to what is going on and be successful in pressuring the North Korean regime to  change its policies and release these prisoners.

The Loya Jirga, a national council of elders for Afghanistan, agreed that the security pact with the United States be extended to enable a scaled-down US military force to remain to train and support the local army; however, President Karzai has strangely not agreed to sign the pact. Please pray that he will comply before the end of this year or the US has threatened to pull out all of its forces and leave the nation to its own devices militarily against the Taliban rebels.

Pray for reconciliation efforts that some are taking within Afghanistan that healing and forgiveness can spread among the diverse ethnic groups who have a history of conflict and division.

Pray also that the financial resources that enable the Taliban to carry on their war against the Afghan and Pakistani governments and nations will be cut off and that the Taliban leaders will be brought to justice. Three very wicked Taliban leaders have recently been removed through drone strikes.

Pray for the strengthening of the prayer movement in both countries, that God's people will come together in greater unity and will persevere in intercession with faith and confidence so that a new day of peace and development will be the result.

Pakistan´s Taliban Approach is Risky for Christians

WEA-RLC Research and Analysis Report

November 27, 2013

The killing of over 85 people and the wounding of 150 others in a suicide bombing at a church in Peshawar two months ago has brought no change in the Pakistani government´s approach to dealing with Islamist terrorists. Instead of taking strong action, the government continues to surrender to the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) while appearing weak and timid.

The attack at All Saints Church in Peshawar on Sept. 22 was the first major targeting of a non-Muslim minority by the TTP, which acts as an umbrella organization of numerous smaller terror outfits in the country. Until the church bombing, the Taliban would launch targeted attacks only on Shia or Ahmaddiya people, state officials and at times high-profile Christian individuals.

Most terror strikes are about messaging, and the message sent out by the TTP through the church bombing was perceptible. One, it was seemingly an assertion of confidence by demonstrating the expansion of the target, which was foreseeable given the Islamist terror network´s belief in creating a homogenous society where only their version of Islam is practised. Two, the attack was perhaps aimed at making the government desperate to negotiate peace with the Taliban with little or no bargaining power. After all, a terror attack on Christians gets more international attention than assaults on Muslim minorities, and thereby causes a greater concern in the local government.

The TTP has demanded that the government release detained terrorists, withdraw troops from the tribal areas and force the United States to stop drone attacks before negotiations begin. And the government appears to be continually giving in, showing clearly that it is afraid to take on the terror group. "So fearful is the government that it has put on hold the execution of three convicted militants including the mastermind of the 2009 GHQ [Pakistan Army Headquarters in Rawalpindi] attack after threats from the Taliban," said a recent article in Pakistan´s Dawn newspaper.

This week, Member of Parliament Raja Zafar ul Haq, who is the chairman of the governing party, told the BBC that the government will not criticize the Pakistan Taliban. "We don´t want to spoil the atmosphere, that would be counter-productive," he said, adding, "I don´t want to say anything against them which hurts their feelings."

Former leader of the Pakistan Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, who was killed in a drone strike [by the United States, and not Pakistani forces] on Nov. 1, was purported to be interested in striking a deal with the government. But the outfit´s new head, Mullah Fazlullah, has categorically rejected calls for peace talks. But the government apparently wants to woo him, although Fazlullah´s men were believed to be behind the attack on 16-year-old education activist Malala Yousafzai.

Few have believed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's claim of "foreign hand" in the church bombing. The Taliban has denied, and at the same time admitted, its role. "We didn´t carry out the church attack. However, we believe it´s according to the Sharia," TTP spokesperson Shahidullah Shahid told BBC last month, and added that the group has many factions, all working towards the same goals.

Naturally, "a culture of fear grips the nation as the state has abdicated all responsibility, leaving the people at the mercy of the terrorists," add the Dawn article. "It gives the people little faith when their political leaders surrender to the militant narrative."

In its editorial the day after the church attack, Dawn noted that the hatred and bigotry embedded in the extremist ideology is not just about foreigners, but also about the majority of Pakistanis themselves. "Be it Shias, Ismailis, Barelvis, non-Muslims or anyone else deemed to be outside the pale of radical Islam as practised by the militants and terrorists, everyone is a target," it said.

Until the political leadership of Pakistan acknowledges that the ideology of  the TTP leaves no room for negotiations, "there can be no real understanding of why Pakistan has been so wracked by violence," the newspaper added. "And without that understanding, there cannot begin to be a solution."

While the TTP has communicated that it has a new target, i.e. Christians, the government has not made any effort to deter the group from that position. This can prove to be dangerous for the minority in the coming months and years.

The relations between Pakistan and the United States are far from cordial despite cooperation by the former in the latter´s war against terror, but Washington must not overlook the suffering of Pakistan´s minorities and liberal Muslim sections. If the United States can negotiate its way in continuing drone attacks despite pressure from powerful sections in Pakistan, it cannot excuse itself for not convincing Islamabad to deal strictly with the Taliban. If there´s a will, there´s a way.

Pray for the Removal of the Wicked and the Overthrow of Terrorism

Pray for the end of the wave of terrorism and extremism in both countries. Using their names given below, agree with us for the arrest or removal of each one of these extremely wicked Taliban leaders who are responsible for the deaths of many thousands and awful destruction and chaos that continues to plague both lands.

The LORD set ambushes against the men of ... they were defeated.... they helped to destroy one another. 2Ch 20:22-23

We have been asking you to pray that God would either change the hearts of the evil Taliban leaders or in some way remove them.

This is just a reminder to continue praying for these evil men. Below is a little explanation of what their names mean.

When the enemy came before Jehoshaphat, he went to God in prayer. Israel prayed and God went before them and fought the battle.The LORD set ambushes against the men of ... they were defeated.... they helped to destroy one another.
More were destroyed by the hail than by the armies of Israel. Joshua 10:11
God will destroy the enemy by hail and fire. Rev 8:7
We see instances like this again and again in Scripture.

Can God not do the same today? But note each of the above instances was ushered in when God's people went to him in prayer. When we pray, God will intervene and bring judgment upon the enemies of God.

Afghanistan Taliban: Mullah Muhammad Omar. Mullah- religious leader & teacher like Rev. or Pastor. Muhammad - descriptive title - Muslim follower of Muhammad.

Pakistan Taliban: Malawi Jalaluddin Haqqani. Malawi - religious leader - gives the call to prayer five times a day. Haqqani tribe is on both sides of the border. Now operating out of Pakistan for their own safety from NATO.
Hakimullah Mehsud. Hakim or Hakeem - title of respect for teacher of respect with great wisdom. The "i" or the "ee" are pronounced long E. In Arabic it is very clear, but reporters in English use to say Hakim Mullah or Hakeem Mullah and then made it one word Hakimullah. Mullah - religious leader.

Punjab Taliban: Malik Ishaq. Malik - meaning head of or in charge of. He has his own "pir" and worshipping place, a extension of Uch Sharif. He has started many major terrorist groups in Pakistan. This has helped him avoid execution because if a group is disbanded they cannot bring charges against the leader. His groups are quickly growing in number. For some, their purpose is to take over the government, and for others it is to fight the infidels outside the country (in league with Al-Qaida). These groups must be brought down if there is to be any peace in the region.

Our work is to pray so God can accomplish His victory. God's work is to fight for his people. The LORD set ambushes against the men of ... they were defeated.... they helped to destroy one another.

Here's an interesting article written by a Malaysian living in the UK, which reflects on the country's 50th anniversary. In the article he asks "After 50 years of Malaysia's existence, where are we today?" The following mostly sad quotes caught my ear as I read them and it pushed me beyond crying to pray for this nation I have never visited ...

"Yet, something is missing in the development of this nation. The erosion of the fundamental values that our founding members fought to institute has become this nation's bane."
*        PRAY: Lord raise up a compassionate and humble church in this nation that demonstrates true liberty and loves all people equally while also countering the opposing calls for a more secular or more Islamic nation.

"Religious bigotry is on the rise - who can forget the arson attacks on churches and the defiling of suraus?"
*        PRAY: Lord give your church the ability to stand firm in these times, protect and grow them and may they respond with amazing acts of love despite it all.

"Loving Malaysia is like loving a person who doesn't love you back. No matter how hard you try, she will continue rejecting you. But you continue trying."
*        PRAY: Pray for the foreign and nationals workers in this country to grow an ever greater love for this nation and its people then they already have, through walking closely with a God who Himself loves this nation deeply. May the church point people to the real hope of the country, because it demonstrates a true love for this culture and its people who were created in God's image and therefore uniquely reflect it.

"The consequences of the absence of these values are devastating and debilitating. Malaysia faces a talent hemorrhage. We're losing our competitiveness. The best and the brightest leave the country to escape this oppressive condition"
*        PRAY: Bring the Malaysian diaspora around the world to Christ in amazing ways.

"Why come back? Entahlah. It's a geographical accident that I was born Malaysian, I could have been born as a citizen of any another country. Maybe going back to Malaysia has more to do with emotional attachments than rationality."
*        PRAY: Bring many believing Malaysians back home to influence their country from the inside out.

"Nevertheless, when I weigh the evidence, I cannot help but feel negative. My wish of a post-racial society seems like a fantasy - a long walk to a colour-free Malaysia."
*        PRAY: Give many in this country a hope and vision found only in Christ of a multitude of nations worshiping before a single throne and single God.    

The original article was first posted on The Malay Mail Online. To follow this colleague's blog see: http://kiteline.wordpress.com/2013/09/17/cry-my-beloved-malaysia/

Email Address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Valuable Website: www.apeopleloved.com

Please pray for much greater unity within the Hungarian Body of Christ, because since an act of our parliament, since the 1st of March 2012, there are government-supported Christian denominations and churches and non-government-supported -untraditional- Christian Churches. It is a lot like in China or was in our own country before the fall of the communist era. Some of us strongly believe that it has been the result of the constant disunity and bad connections of the Hungarian pastors and church leaders.

Please pray for clear vision and guidance for the church leaders and intercessor groups that they may act according the will of God, to be able to represent Him and build His kingdom in this more and more difficult and unfriendly world.  

Last year, Reinhard Bonnke wanted to visit Hungary. This Summer, the team of the International House of Prayer planned to have a prayer conference in Budapest, but none of it was realised because of the unwillingness or lack of interest of churches and leading pastors. Interestingly enough, John Maxwell with his Business + Conference and course was able to mobilize most of them for the next weekend, even though they all have to pay quite a big amount of attendance fee for it.

It is really really amazing and so relevant what the prophet wrote in the Old Testament: "Who is so blind as my servants?"

Szabolcs Szatmari from Budapest, Hungary