ISIS mimics the horrific public killings of Christians by North Korea’s government
ICC Note:
It is likely that the Islamic State took much of its torturous tactics from the authoritarian North Korean government. Earlier this week, the Iraqi News reported that ISIS killed six people by crushing them to death with a bulldozer. IS executes people it accuses of going against their so-called caliphate by publicly crushing them underneath heavy construction machinery or battle tanks. Although those events may seem like new barbaric ways of killing people, the regime of former North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il used a similar tactic. In November 1996, the North Korean authorities executed five Christians, three pastors and two elders, by crushing them underneath a steam roller in South Pyongan Province after refusing to deny their faith in Christ and serve only Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il at the time.
09/29/2016 North Korea (The Christian Post) – While much in the international news today is dominated by the utter barbarity and heinousness in how the Islamic State tortures and executes its victims, a look back in history shows that it’s possible the jihadis have taken pages from the torturous playbook of the authoritarian North Korean government.
On Monday, the Iraqi News reported that IS (also known as ISIS or ISIL) killed six of its own members who fled the battlefield in Iraq by crushing them to death with a bulldozer in the group’s largest Iraqi stronghold of Mosul.
This is not the first time that the terrorist group has crushed its victims to death under the weight of heavy machinery. In a video released last October, a Syrian soldier is shown being crushed to death underneath a battle tank.
While it might seem unique when IS executes people it accuses of going against their so-called caliphate by publicly crushing them underneath heavy construction machinery or battle tanks, the regime of former North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il used a similar tactic when it publicly executed five Christians in November 1996 because of their faith in Christ.
A 2005 report issued by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom detailed a witness account of how three pastors and two elders were crushed underneath a steam roller in South Pyongan Province after their names and the names of 20 other Christians were found in a notebook that laid next to a Bible in a house demolished by the North Korean army.
The execution of the five Christians was carried out by soldiers who also forced a public crowd to watch.
“This steam roller was a large construction vehicle imported from Japan with a heavy, huge, and wide steel roller mounted on the front to crush and level the roadway prior to pouring concrete,” the report states. “[T]hey were told ‘If you abandon religion and serve only Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, you will not be killed.’ None of the five said a word. Some of the fellow parishioners assembled to watch the execution cried, screamed out, or fainted when the skulls made a popping sound as they were crushed beneath the steam roller.”
While the the five Christians leaders were crushed to death, the other 20 Christians were believed to have been sent to a labor camp where they were likely tortured, forced to do hard labor, or killed.
The North Korean army giving the Christian leaders a chance to renounce their faith is a tactic that was also reportedly used by IS last October when the group executed 11 Christian missionaries and a child of one of the missionaries in Syria.