Students Pray For North Korea, Share Films On Refugees' Plight

Moved by the famine, torture and religious persecution spread throughout North Korea, a small group of students have taken up the country's plight as a call not to arms, but prayer.

Driven by their Christian faith, about 30 students crammed into a small room in Wheeler Hall Wednesday to watch documentaries and pray for North Korean refugees.

Others eager to share personal experiences spoke about their connections to North Korean defectors yesterday.

"We identify with them, we consider them our family as people of Christian faith," said Paul Kim, a member of Students Praying for North Korea.

The eight members found each other through a North Berkeley church they regularly attended and started the group this year.

It was a mix of heritage and religion that compelled UC Berkeley student Christie Jeon to the cause. And an interview with a North Korean refugee while visiting South Korea last summer gave her more of a first-hand picture.

Jeon, who once faced ridicule for being an immigrant, started to look into her past.

"Now, I take my FOB-iness as a compliment," Jeon said.

The students now want to take North Korea's story to UC Berkeley

students.

"I grew up in South Korea knowing about the North Korean situation," said UC Berkeley student Ileen Huh. "I wanted to know how much Americans knew about the situation."

Without ASUC funding, the students pooled $400 of their own money to put together this week's events.

"We had been getting together to pray for this issue for like eight months," Kim said. "We registered as a student group, put together material, made a packet, and got permission to run documentaries."

The members are also collecting signatures for a petition to push a bill through Congress, which would grant asylum to escaped North Koreans.

"We hope that they go back to their own churches and present this issue," Kim said.

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