As one more example of how the North Korean government makes a mockery of, by trying to duplicate, the Christian faith, consider the biweekly "criticism and self-criticism" sessions.

"[the sessions] were nothing new to me. Such meetings took place in every North Korean school... But outside the camp, these ideological exercises tended to be peaceable and rather formal in nature. Nothing much happened if you didn't criticize well enough or happened to criticize too sharply. At Yodok, the stakes were much higher. Punishments consisted of hours of nighttime wood chopping, even for ten- and thirteen-year-old children...

"...At the far end of the room was a platform with a table where the prisoner sat to present his self-criticism. Next to the table stood two guards, along with a representative of the prisoners. There were no other chairs in the room. The other prisoners sat on the floor in groups of five, clustered with their fellow team members. The assembly hall was always overcrowded. Some prisoners dozed off, others became nauseous from the intensity of the body odor that hung in the air - there was no soap at Yodok...

"...The prelude to the ceremony varied somewhat, but the main action was always the same. The wrongdoer would step onto the platform, his head bowed, and launch into his self-criticism with a fool-proof formula such as ‘Our Great Leader commanded us...' followed by one of Kim's great ‘Thoughts.' "

Then, says the author, the speaker would tell how he had broken faith with that thought. (In our confessions we would call that "sin". The parallel is so real as to be scary.) Then he would pledge some "penance", as we might say, some proof of reform or change. "I will wake up a half hour earlier and make myself equal to the task of fulfilling [Kim's] orders. I will renew myself," etc. etc.

If the prisoner succeeded in criticizing himself well enough he would then be allowed to criticize others. If not, members of the audience could criticize him further. And, "If the accused tried to defend himself, a third prisoner, and if necessary, a fourth, was selected to take up the assault.

"...it was hard to take [the sessions] seriously - despite the perfect silence imposed by the hard gaze of the guards. We were like bored kids in a class they find meaningless. The smallest distraction would set us off." He then relates how some member of the group might suddenly pass gas. The guards would become outraged, asking for the "guilty" party to identify himself.

When he did, he would be "pushed toward the self-criticism table to expiate his gas-passing with a mea culpa, at the end of which he usually received a week's worth of supplementary work detail."

Enough.If you want to know about public executions, postmortem stonings, forced abortions, and how the author finally escapes to China and then South Korea, you'll have to read it on your own.