Tag: kidnapping

The North and South Korean governments are trying to use this week’s inter-Korean family reunions to create a strong emotional response both domestically and internationally to justify future economic cooperation.  However, sanctions continue to be in place against North Korea over their nuclear program which prevents the South Korean government from giving the Kim regime the payday the Kim regime has long wanted.  However, if the ROK government pushes the Trump administration on this issue President Trump should hold a press conference with Mr. Hwang In-cheol and other abductees and ask when their family reunions are going to happen?:

As a lucky few Korean families meet decades after being divided by war, Hwang In-cheol looks on lamenting the absence of his father, whose plane was hijacked by the North.

Hwang was only two when his father Won left for a business trip in 1969, never to return. Now 50, he has spent his life missing a man he only knows from pictures.

Scores of elderly North and South Koreans who were separated by the 1950-53 conflict met for the first time in decades Monday, hugging each other tearfully.

But none of them was among the thousands of South Koreans Seoul says were kidnapped by the North after the war.

“The sight of the families reuniting looks very nice but these one-time reunions are not a solution to the problem,” Hwang said.

“I hope that day for me comes soon. I’m hoping that my father will be alive until then.”  [Japan Times via a reader tip]

You can read more at the link, but Mr. Hwang’s father was abducted as part of the hijacking of Korean Air YS-11 back in 1969.  You can read about the hijacking at the below link:

https://www.rokdrop.net/2015/08/dmz-flashpoints-the-1969-hijacking-of-korean-airlines-ys-11/

Members of a South Korean civic group stage a rally in front of the Capella Hotel in Singapore on June 12, 2018, demanding the repatriation of South Koreans kidnapped by North Korea as North Korean leader Kim Jong-un holds a summit meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump at the hotel. (Yonhap)

South Korea's Unification Minister confirms what we already knew — that the Ningpo 13 came to SK of their own free will. Now let the SK government do its duty to protect their privacy & safety.
조명균 ˝탈북 여종업원, 자유의사로 한국 왔다˝ https://t.co/L1As6VMm92

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) May 18, 2018

Japan says South Korea's Moon promised help to resolve North Korea abduction issue https://t.co/5mFYWdoz5G

— NorthKoreaRealTime (@BuckTurgidson79) March 17, 2018

Horrible news for the family of this South Korean ship captain who was kidnapped by the ISIS linked Abu Sayyaf group in the Philippines:

Suspected Abu Sayyaf militants have abducted a South Korean skipper and a Filipino crewman from a South Korean cargo ship in the latest such attacks that have sparked a security alarm in the busy regional sealanes, military officials said Friday.

About 10 gunmen boarded the MV Dongbang Giant using ropes from a speedboat and abducted skipper Chul Hong and Filipino crewman Glenn Alindajao on Thursday off Bongao town in Tawi Tawi province. The ship was on its way to South Korea from Australia, regional military spokesman Maj. Filemon Tan said.

Other crewmen were not seized and one managed to call his family, which reported the assault to authorities, according to Tan.  [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link.

The Joong Ang Ilbo has an extensive profile on the life of Hwang In-cheol who is the son of a 32-year old MBC producer that was kidnapped by North Korea on a hijacked plane.  You can read about this story at my prior DMZ Flashpoints posting.  This hijacking is just one of the many terrorist incidents the Kim regime has never been held accountable for and to this day some how remains off of the US’s state sponsors of terrorism list:

When Hwang In-cheol was 2 years old, his father disappeared.

“Maybe he’ll come back on Christmas Day,” Hwang’s mother said.

Hwang counted down the days, imagining his father coming through the door laden down with presents.

It didn’t happen.

“Maybe next Christmas,” his mother said.

It wasn’t until Hwang was in the third grade that his father’s brother decided he should know the truth.

Hwang Won was a 32-year-old producer for Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) based in Gangwon. On Dec. 11, 1969, he boarded a Korean Air flight from Gangneung, Gangwon, for Gimpo International Airport in Seoul to attend an MBC internal meeting. A senior colleague who was supposed to attend was busy. He ordered Hwang to fill in for him.

Ten minutes after takeoff, a North Korean spy hijacked the YS-11 aircraft and the 50 other people on it, all South Koreans, to Wonsan, some 207 kilometers (128.6 miles) east of Pyongyang, the North’s capital.

The producer left behind his wife, a 3-month-old daughter and 2-year-old Hwang In-cheol.

It was the second – and last – instance of a South Korean aircraft being hijacked by the North. On Feb. 16, 1958, a Korean Air flight from Busan to Seoul was abducted midway with 34 people on board, including a few foreigners.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read much more at the link.

https://twitter.com/freekorea_us/status/746720560332283904

This is actually a legitimate concern that the ROK government should have considering North Korea’s long history of kidnapping foreign nationals:

South Korea warned on Monday there is a risk of its citizens being abducted by Pyongyang in retaliation for the defection of a dozen North Korean staff at a restaurant in China.

Twelve women working at the restaurant in the eastern Chinese city of Ningbo defected to the South with their manager last month.

Seoul said they came voluntarily while the North insists they were tricked into defecting by South Korean spies who effectively “kidnapped” them.

The South’s Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korea affairs, said overseas missions had been advised to heighten their vigilance.

“We are closely watching out for multiple possibilities, including abduction or terrorism … by the North,” said ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-Hee.

“We are trying to ensure the safety of our nationals,” he told reporters.

Seoul’s Hankook Ilbo daily reported Monday that Pyongyang was plotting to abduct South Koreans to trade for the 13 defectors.

“They set the target of 120 people including expats, soldiers and officials,” the newspaper said, citing an official source familiar with North Korean affairs.  [AFP]

You can read more at the link, but if they were going to attempt to kidnap Koreans the easiest place to do it would be in China.  Another country to be careful in would be in Japan considering how North Korea’s has kidnapped so many people before from that country as well.

The Kim regime must be pretty embarrassed by the recent mass defection of 13 overseas restaurant workers because they are continuing to make the claim that they were all kidnapped:

In the video, the North Koreans are seen demanding the immediate repatriation of the defectors.

The defections are being labeled as an operation of the “treasonous clique of [South Korean President] Park Geun-hye,” and the two videos feature various North Koreans: restaurant workers, a student and a party cadre.

One interviewee condemned the South Korean puppets for “kidnapping our people 10 at a time,” adding “the [South Korean] presidential Blue House, the devil’s lair, should be destroyed and our people delivered as soon as possible.”

On April 7, North Koreans – a man and 12 women – had arrived in the South after they sought asylum at Seoul’s embassy in Bangkok.

North Korea has slammed Seoul, claiming South Korea “dragged” the North Koreans to a “Southeast Asian country.”  [UPI]

You can read more at the link.

I hope the US government vigorously goes after North Korean assets in order to pay this restitution:

A U.S. court has ordered North Korea to pay US$330 million in compensation to the family of a late Korean-American pastor abducted by the North in 2000 while trying to help North Korean defectors in China.

The Washington D.C. District Court delivered the verdict earlier this month, bringing the total amount of damages North Korea has to pay as results of a series of lawsuits in the U.S. so far to about $777 million, according to diplomatic sources.

Rev. Kim Dong-shik was taken by a North Korean kidnapping squad in 2000 from Yanbian in northeastern China, apparently due to his support for North Korean defectors in China. Kim is believed to have died the following year.

Kim’s family in the U.S. filed the lawsuit in 2009.

“This is an important human rights decision that will be utilized in all political abduction cases going forward,” said the Israel Law Center, known as Shurat HaDin, in a statement. The Israeli civic group filed the suit on behalf of Kim’s family.

Few expect North Korea to comply with the verdict and pay the damages, but Shurat HaDin is seeking to seize North Korean assets the U.S. government has frozen as part of a series of financial sanctions over Pyongyang’s weapons of mass destruction development and other bad behavior.  [Yonhap]

You can read the rest at the link, but you can read more at the Kim Dong-shik kidnapping at this link and this link.