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Christian Group Threatened Over Faxes to North Korea

Remember when, several months ago, I published a long list of fax numbers for North Korean entities of various kinds, both inside and outside North Korea? I wondered if any of those faxes would actually get though. I guess we have our answer:

North Korea has threatened a Christian ministry to stop sending Gospel messages to the country through fax, saying the consequence will be “very bad,” amid testing of seven missiles on U.S. Independence Day. Voice of the Martyrs (VOM) confirmed that an anonymous fax apparently from the North Korean embassy for Finland on 5 June promises workers affiliated with VOM that “something very bad will happen to you” if VOM continues a special project to share the Gospel.

VOM said during the past year it had collected many fax numbers from inside North Korea, and have been sending weekly faxes containing Christian messages and Scripture passages on love and forgiveness to each of the fax numbers.

“This fax is good news,” said Todd Nettleton, VOM’s director of Media Development and the author of a book on the history of Christianity in North Korea. “This means that the faxes are getting through, and they are being read. It is highly unlikely that this type of response would have been made from an embassy without some approval from Pyongyang. [Christianity Today]

Even if the response appears to have been less than a come-to-Jesus moment, the North Koreans will probably have to consider changing some of those fax numbers, thus creating a modest drag on the efficiency of their revenue-seeking enterprises. Hey, because of you, the Syrians might one day have to buy their sarin precursors from France instead:

Apparently, the project has touched a nerve at the highest levels of North Korea’s repressive government, VOM stated in a public statement made in its Web site.

“We know who you are,” begins a fax, written in Korean but without a signature. “We warn you that if you send this kind of dirty fax again something very bad will happen to you. Don’t do something you will regret. [….]

It said, the threatening fax came to a VOM-affiliated office just days before two American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, were sentenced to 12 years hard labor for allegedly crossing the border into North Korea. It came just one day after the latest round of faxes sent by VOM to North Korean fax numbers.

President Bush removed North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism on October 11, 2008 to reward its regime for promising to give up its nuclear weapons. Under , “international terrorism” includes acts that “appear to be intended” to “intimidate or coerce a civilian population” or “to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion. Discuss.

If you’d like to receive you own unique, personalized death threat from North Korea — absolutely free of charge while the regime lasts! — here are some sample faxes that ReACH has helpfully translated into Korean. I’m going to publish another list of fax numbers below the fold, because at OFK, we’re all about bridging what divides us, tearing down walls, and bringing all the children of the world together to dance around one, big happy drum circle. And how are we doing that today? Fax “A” helpfully untangles the complex liaisons that produced Kim Jong Il’s various broods of little porcine sucklings. Fax “B” explains the actual origins of the Korean War and how two countries with the same people, language, culture, and weather patterns managed to diverge into two completely different places — one totalitarian, blighted, starving, and deeply insecure; and one democratic, prosperous, overfed, and deeply insecure.

a.pdf b.pdf

On a related note, the North Korean Freedom Coalition is still helping to launch balloons into North Korea. You may think they’re not much, but judging by the North Koreans’ reaction, someone appears to be reading the leaflets they carry. The NKFC is inviting you to send along your own personalized message (which will also contain small food packets in the near future) to people stuck inside Earth’s very own alternative universe. Even if you don’t believe the messages will have any effect at all, it must cost the regime in readiness, maintenance, and morale to deploy its military to pick up all the subversive litter that’s being spread.

850-2-381-4031 850-2-381-4033 850-2-381-4034 850-2-381-4035 850-2-381-4047 850-2-381-4050 850-2-381-4098 850-2-381-4150 850-2-381-4316 850-2-381-4377 850-2-381-4405 850-2-381-4408 850-2-381-4410 850-2-381-4411 850-2-381-4412 850-2-381-4413 850-2-381-4418 850-2-381-4422 850-2-381-4426 850-2-381-4432 850-2-381-4435 850-2-381-4442 850-2-381-4445 850-2-381-4464 850-2-381-4467 850-2-381-4470 850-2-381-4474 850-2-381-4477 850-2-381-4480 850-2-381-4482 850-2-381-4485 850-2-381-4489 850-2-381-4490 850-2-381-4498 850-2-381-4502 850-2-381-4503 850-2-381-4506 850-2-381-4507 850-2-381-4531 850-2-381-4531 850-2-381-4543 850-2-381-4544 850-2-381-4546 850-2-381-4560 850-2-381-4563 850-2-381-4565 850-2-381-4567 850-2-381-4576 850-2-381-4581 850-2-381-4582 850-2-381-4592 850-2-381-4597 850-2-381-4598 850-2-381-4603 850-2-381-4606 850-2-381-4615 850-2-381-4617 850-2-381-4618 850-2-381-4619 850-2-381-4622 850-2-381-4627 850-2-381-4633 850-2-381-4644 850-2-381-4645 850-2-381-4652 850-2-381-4652 850-2-381-4657 850-2-381-4660 850-2-381-4668 850-2-381-4672 850-2-381-4674 850-2-381-4676 850-2-381-4677 850-2-381-4679 850-2-381-4685 850-2-381-4687 850-2-381-4688 850-2-381-4691 850-2-381-4692 850-2-381-4707 850-2-381-4723 850-2-381-4732 850-2-381-4746 850-2-381-4755 850-2-381-4759 850-2-381-4770 850-2-381-4776 850-2-381-4777 850-2-381-4788 850-2-381-4795 850-2-381-4799 850-2-381-4842 850-2-381-4857 850-2-381-5274 850-2-381-5822 850-2-381-5827 850-2-381-5827 850-2-381-7336 850-2-381-8088 850-2-381-8847 850-2-381-8888

11 Responses

  1. Joshua maybe we should contact Six Flags, Disney World, Universal studios, Busch Gardens and Cedar Point and tell them that we would like some brochures faxed to over to see what the parks have to offer and give them the North Korean fax numbers. Imagine a Pyongyanginite in an office discovering that such places exist outside the people’s utopia. “Dear leader has been lying to us!”….

  2. Is there any danger that innocent people receiving these kinds of messages might be punished??

  3. The Chinese word for fax is “传真” You can add the country code for North Korea (850) and Google plenty of legitimate fax numbers from Chinese websites:

    850-2-381-5274 朝鲜革新贸易会社 North Korea New Revolution Trading Company

    850-2-381-4569 朝鲜矿业贸易会社 North Korea Mining Industry Association

    850-2-381-4634 朝鲜镁砂工业总会社 North Korea Magnesium Industry Association

    850-2-381-4494 朝鲜光明贸易总会社 North Korea Bright Promise Trading Company

    850-2-381-4506 朝鲜银河贸易总会社 North Korea Silver River Trading Company

    850-2-381-3451 朝鲜黄金山贸易会社 North Korea Gold Mountain Trading Company

    850-2-381-8088 朝鲜民艺联合会社 North Korea United Handicrafts Association

    850-2-381-4546 朝鲜万年保健总会社 North Korea 10000 Year Health Products Company

    850-2-381-4416 朝鲜先锋贸易总会社 North Korea Vanguard Trading Company

    850-2-381-4444 朝鲜烽火贸易总会社 North Korea Beacon Trading Company

    850－2－381-2210 朝鲜长寿贸易公司 North Korea Long Life Trading Company

    850-2-381-4598　 朝鲜电脑中心　North Korea Computer Center

    850-2-381-4428 平壤普通江饭店 Pyongyang Putong River Hotel

    850-2-381-4422 平壤高丽饭店 Pyongyang Tall Pretty Hotel

    850－2－381－4497 朝鲜合营银行 North Korea Jointly Operated Bank

    850-2-381－5827　朝鲜国际展览社　North Korea International Exhibition Company

    850-2-381-2626 朝鲜鸭绿江贸易会社 North Korea Yalu River Trading Company (Sinuiju)

    850-2-381-4410 新义州制鞋厂 Sinuiju Shoe Factory

    850-2-381-4626 　North Korea Stamp Corporation

  4. Have you guys actually been to North Korea? Probably not, based on your nationality.
    You are just spewing out prejudice and hatred.

    You don’t seem to be aware of how up to speed North Koreans are on the outside world.
    They know about things like themeparks (they have some modest but adequate ones). A lot of people have electronic gadgets even cheapo mp3 players and desktop computers.

    If you really cared about North Korea you’d stop the childish pranks and help out the refugees in China (evangelise to them, if that’s what you feel called to do). Or help the North Korean system to open up by working with businesses there and exposing people gently to other ideas.

    It wouldn’t do anyone any good if that regime fell over tomorrow, which seems to be what you prefer.

    The people would be even worse off for years to come and it would be totally undignified for them. The experience of Russia was ghastly and practically nobody there would do it the same way again. Gently, gently is much better. But they are hardly going to open up if all they get is hostility and even schoolyard style bullying with silly faxes.

    It’s not THAT bad to live under communism. I have done it and it has some good as well as bad sides.

  5. “They know about things like themeparks (they have some modest but adequate ones). “

    The ghostly silent ferris wheel in Shinuiju makes a great photo op for border gawkers in Dandong.

  6. Actually Miriam, My two brief visits to North Korea were limited to one building at the DMZ because I was wearing a U.S. Army uniform at the time. You, on the other hand, saw North Koreans running around with playthings of the elite like MP3 players, objects that are utterly unknown to the average North Korean in Kaechong, Chongjin, or Hamhung. It causes me to wonder just what you were doing in North Korea and what you paid for the privilege. By financing a regime that oppresses its people so ruthlessly, you must sleep soundly knowing how you’ve contributed to sustaining that oppression, and hence the misery of its people.

    It’s not THAT bad to live under communism. I have done it and it has some good as well as bad sides.

    I crossed Eastern Europe a few months after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Those countries arguably had the best standards of living Communism has ever offered is subjects. In Czechoslovakia, the grocery shelves where 2/3 empty, color film wasn’t to be found in the largest department store in Prague, and the restaurants ran out of food at dinner time. Yet millions of people went to the streets and risked their lives to overthrow that system, and I doubt that you could name one place, Russia included, that would ever go back to Communism after having experienced it.

    That said, I think it’s debatable whether North Korea is functionally Communist at all, and the worst shortages and abuses of Eastern Europe were a far cry from this or this. When you’ve been to these places and spoken to the people who’ve experienced those aspects of life in North Korea, by all means stop by and lecture us all about how much more you know about life in North Korea and the dignity it confers on its people than the rest of us do. Please ramble to the full extent of your liking about how much the people prefer its standard of living over wherever you’re accessing the internet from. You’re free to vote for whatever form of government you want in your own country. What’s so essential to you about denying North Koreans the same right?

    If you really cared about North Korea you’d stop the childish pranks and help out the refugees in China …. Or help the North Korean system to open up by working with businesses there and exposing people gently to other ideas.

    What do you suppose Kim Dae Jung, Roh Moo Hyun, Bill Clinton, and even George W. Bush have spent the last decade doing? And how is that working out? Where is the reform? Where is the end of tension? Where is that warm wind of humanity and prosperity that breathes so freely on the North Korean people? Where are the glasnost and perestroika that billions of American and South Korean dollars should have bought by now?

    On the other hand, I like this particular childish prank because it’s fun, and also because it plays on the regime’s paranoia about subversive speech and could cause it to shut down connections that help it finance itself. Feeding the beast isn’t going to make North Korea more humane for its people. Starving the regime until it either (a) collapses or (b) is forced to tolerate real transparency will.

  7. Miriam,

    “Have you guys actually been to North Korea?”

    How about you? If you have, you were certainly followed closely by minders, and you certainly weren’t allowed outside of Pyongyang unless you were part of some NGO/approved aid, or if you took a train into NK.

    “A lot of people have electronic gadgets even cheapo mp3 players and desktop computers. ”

    You are talking about the Pyongyangites. That is 10% of the population. What about the rest of the 90%? I in fact analogize Pyongyang with Bel-Air, California. It’s a different population and mindset from the rest of the country.

    “It’s not THAT bad to live under communism.”

    Probably not. I mean….you get the internet there, or at least 85% of it. At least your brand of ‘communism’, your country could feed you. NK is more of a dictatorship.

    Thanks for your opinion.

  9. Excuse me Miriam, but could you tell me which nationality spews prejudice and hatred to North Koreans?
    Is it the Chinese (People’s Republic of China), who place bounties on the heads of North Korean refugees in Jilin province?
    Or maybe you had in mind the Japanese, who have been discriminating against and oppressing North Koreans in Japan much longer than the Chinese have in China?
    Or could it possibly be the Americans, who are still willing to supply food to starving North Koreans if the Pyongyang government would only allow us to verify that it gets inside their hungry mouths!

    I sincerely hope Kim Jong-il gently dies tomorrow and South Korea takes over with a good old fashioned German style regime change. “Auf wiedersehen!”

  10. Miriam I feel soo bad for trying to get on the nerves of a tyrannical murderous regime. Oh please forgive me.