North Korea to Release U.S. Missionary

By Hyo-Jin Paik
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea announced that it would release the American missionary, Robert Park, who entered North Korea illegally on Christmas Day.

Park was arrested after entering North Korea in order to publicize the human rights abuses occurring in the North.  He had specifically wanted to ask the country’s leader, Kim Jong-il, to close down its concentration camps and free the prisoners. 

According to the North Korea’s official news agency, Korean Central News Agency (K.C.N.A.), authorities said that “the relevant organ of the DPRK decided to leniently forgive and release [Park], taking his admission and sincere repentance of his wrongdoing into consideration.”

K.C.N.A. reported that Park had confessed that after entering North Korea and meeting its citizens, he realized that he was wrong about North Korea.

North Korea’s news agency report quoted Park as confessing, “I seriously repent of the wrong I committed, taken in by the West’s false propaganda.  What I have seen and heard in the North convinced me that I misunderstood it.”

The report said that Park’s misconceptions of North Korea were shattered when he first met the North Korean border guards who apparently protected Park’s human rights, and Park was further surprised when he realized that religious freedom was protected in the North after visiting the country’s capital, Pyongyang. 

Park was quoted as saying, “They even returned my Bible to me.  This fact alone was enough to convince me that there was a complete freedom of religion.” 

The news agency also quoted Park as saying, “I would not have committed such a crime [trespassing into North Korean border] if I had known that the DPRK respects the rights of all the people and guarantees their freedom and they enjoy a happy and stable life.”

Regarding Park’s release, a South Korean research institute director, Kim Yeon-Chul, observed that “the North is making a friendly gesture towards Washington as Pyongyang is actively seeking to open dialogue with the United States.”

However, a South Korean Christian activist, Jo Sung-Rae, commented that K.C.N.A.’s interview is not to be trusted.

K.C.N.A. has stated that Park voluntarily agreed to the interview, and there currently is no information regarding Park’s release date.

For more information, please see:

AFP – North Korea to free ‘repentant’ US missionary – 4 February 2010

NYT –North Korea Says It Will Release U.S. Missionary – 4 February 2010

WSJ – North Korea Says It Will Release American Missionary - 4 February 2010