Korean-American missionary had 30 guards in North Korean prison camp

NEW YORK (Christian Examiner) – An American missionary who was imprisoned in a North Korean prison camp for more than two years has written a book about his experience, complete with details of his daily interactions with the 30 guards assigned to him in the detention center.

According to VICE News, which interviewed Kenneth Bae, the Korean-American pastor arrested for fomenting dissent with religion, the guards watched Bae as he spent an hour in prayer every morning before heading to the fields, where he worked for eight hours a day with little food or water.

All of the guards, only familiar with the state propaganda they've heard about the United States since their youth, believed 99 percent of Americans were poor and homeless, Bae said.

"I told them that's not true," he said. "They want to know how much money you need to live with a family of four, things like that. I told them most people own a house and a car, and they said, 'That can't be right.'"

"At the beginning, it was difficult," Bae told VICE News. "But because I speak the language, I was able to communicate."

Bae was jailed on his 18th visit to North Korea after accidentally carrying a hard drive with missions information on it about the repressive country. Bae was removed from his hotel by agents and forced to write a confession.

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