Tag: detainee

Like I have said for all of these detainment cases, I feel for the families effected by this, but if you willing travel into North Korea this is the risk you are taking.  No one else should be expected to get you out of trouble when things go wrong.  This is why I have advocated for no one to travel to North Korea because not only are you supporting the Kim regime with hard currency, but you are also giving the regime bargaining chips they can use for future use if they feel they need them:

North Korea sentenced a detained Canadian pastor to life imprisonment with hard labor 10 months after taking him into custody.

Pyongyang’s state-controlled KCNA reported, “The trial of Canadian pastor Hyeon Soo Lim, who undertook a special plot to overthrow the state, took place before the Supreme Court on Dec. 16.”

North Korea said the defendant received a life sentence with hard labor and was found guilty of violating Pyongyang’s Criminal Law Article 60, or conspiring to overthrow the Kim Jong Un regime. Pyongyang added there were “witnesses” who had evidence of Lim’s wrongdoing.

Speaking on behalf of the defendant, 60, North Korea said Lim had admitted to his wrongdoing: adopting South Korea’s anti-Pyongyang hostile actions by “insulting [North Korea’s] highest dignity and its system with vicious slander” and “harboring ill will and attempting to take down [North Korea].”  [UPI]

You can read the rest at the link.

Long-read about the Ohio man held in North Korea for planting a bible. @atavistmag https://t.co/hE3GwOow8n

— Alastair Gale (@AlastairGale) November 18, 2015

I have no sympathy for idiots like this guy who cross into North Korea for their own selfish reasons and then when the going gets tough they willingly make themselves propaganda tools of the Kim regime and want South Korea and the US to get them out:

North Korea Monday repatriated a South Korean student who had been detained for five months, an unexpected conciliatory gesture toward South Korea.

Joo Won-moon, a 21-year-old student at New York University and a green card holder for the U.S., was handed over to South Korean authorities at the border village of Panmunjom at around 5:30 p.m. Monday. Joo’s release followed a surprise announcement earlier in the day by the state-run Korean Central News Agency saying he would be freed. The announcement didn’t elaborate on what led it to the decision.

Joo crossed the Yalu River from China into North Korea in April and was arrested by North Korean guards. In an interview with CNN in May, he said he hoped his journey “could have a good effect in the relationship.”

Joo reappeared before cameras in a Sept. 25 press conference in Pyongyang at which he read what was seen as a carefully drafted statement praising North Korea and denying international accusations that the Pyongyang regime was responsible for gross human rights violations. He also called for a shift in the U.S.’s North Korea policy to engage the country more.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link.

Whether or not he illegally entered North Korea doesn’t matter to me because this is the chance anyone visiting North Korea takes for going there in the first place:

South Korea confirmed on Sunday that North Korea detained a South Korean student of New York University, but said it was still unclear whether the 21-year-old New Jersey resident attempted to enter the North illegally.

An official from South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles affairs with North Korea, said his department was still trying to gather information on Won Moon Joo’s travels and the circumstances of his arrest.

“Our judgment is that Joo is being held in North Korea, but we are still trying to confirm the details of how he got arrested,” he said on condition of anonymity, citing office rules.

North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said Saturday that Joo was arrested on April 22 after trying to illegally enter North Korea by crossing the Amnok River from the Chinese border town of Dandong.  [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link.

I feel bad for the families effected by this, but once again these people only have themselves to blame for being detained and governments should not feel compelled to get them released when their own stupidity by traveling to North Korea in first place is the cause for what happened:

Canada’s government has confirmed that a Canadian pastor has been detained in North Korea, the man’s family said Thursday.

Canadian officials told the family that North Korea’s government confirmed the detention of Reverend Hyeon Soo Lim, said Lisa Pak, a spokeswoman for the family and the Light Korean Presbyterian Church in Toronto. Pak said Lim is facing charges but could not say what they are.

Pak said Lim was supposed to return from a humanitarian trip to North Korea more than a month ago. He has not been heard from since he travelled to North Korea on Jan. 31 as part of a regular humanitarian mission where he supports a nursing home, a nursery and an orphanage, she said.  [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link.

Does everyone remember the American idiot who tried to swim to North Korea a few months ago? Well he’s back and this time he made into North Korea via China:

SEOUL (Reuters) – A U.S. citizen who said he illegally entered North Korea held a press conference in Pyongyang on Sunday to deliver a 4,000-word statement denouncing U.S. domestic and foreign policy, CNN said.

CNN said the man identified himself as Arutro Pierre Martinez, 29, from the U.S. border town of El Paso. His mother told CNN her son was bipolar, and had previously tried to enter North Korea from the South Korean side.

“He is very smart and he got the court to let him out and instead of coming home to us he bought a ticket and left for China,” the television news channel quoted Patricia Eugenia Martinez as saying. (Reuters via reader tip)

You can read more at the link, but this guy went to North Korea two days after the other two Americans were released. This just shows that the U.S. government negotiating for the release of these individuals is just encouraging others idiots and the mentally ill to go to North Korea as well.

These people need to be treated like the past military defectors that were allowed to rot in North Korea. The U.S. Government needs to let Martinez rot there as well.

I thought maybe that former North Korean detainee Matthew Miller had some mental issues to explain his odd detention in North Korea, but after reading this great NK News interview with him it turns out he is just an idiot:

It’s a story that begins with North Korea trying to refuse to imprison him, and ends with him going home on the personal airplane of America’s top spy.

It’s clearly more than an average vacation, yet this is exactly what 25-year-old Matthew Miller – the Bakersfield, California citizen who had his release from North Korea secured last Saturday by U.S. Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper – has just experienced.

Enduring 210 days held prisoner by Pyongyang, Miller’s tale – now revealed exclusively by NK News – shows more signs of being an extreme vacation causing a major headache for Washington than the “six years of hard labor” North Korean state media called it when he was sentenced in September.

Despite fears in Washington about Miller’s attempt to claim “political asylum” during a tourist trip to North Korea this April, an interview with NK News shows that, far from being arrested upon entry, it took considerable effort for the curious American to get entangled in the DPRK legal system.

During his nearly six months in custody, Matthew Miller said he wanted to find out what North Korea was like beyond the tourist trail, something it seems he was successful in discovering.

“This might sound strange, but I was prepared for the ‘torture’ but instead of that I was killed with kindness, and with that my mind folded and the plan fell apart,” Miller told NK News this week from California.

“I sincerely apologized to North Korea, it was not coerced at all,” Miller said of his court statement to DPRK legal authorities.

“Before going I did not think I would feel guilt for my actions toward North Korea. Over time that changed and I did feel guilt for the crime, so in that sense I consider what I did to be a mistake even though I did achieve (my) goals.”  [NK News]

I recommend reading the whole interview at the link, but even the North Koreans saw that this guy was an idiot and were eager to get rid of him. It just makes me wonder if idiots like this should be charged with a crime for basically wasting everyone’s time, even the North Koreans with his stupidity? Or charge him for the cost of using the airplane to fly him out of North Korea?

Via One Free Korea comes news of just how stupid former North Korea detainee Jeffrey Fowle is:

An American who is back home after being detained in North Korea says he left a Bible in a nightclub hoping it would get into the hands of the underground Christian church.

Jeffrey Fowle said Friday that he left the Bible under a trash bin at a nightclub in the northern port city of Chongjinin in an effort “to spread the Gospel out to the remote corners.”

Fowle arrived in North Korea on April 29. He was detained after North Korean officials found the Bible.

Fowle said he had left his name in the Bible and hoped a Christian would find it.

Fowle was detained for nearly six months. He returned to his home in Ohio last week after negotiations involving retired diplomat and former Ohio Congressman Tony Hall. [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link and according to this interview he did he is not sorry for his action as at all.

I think One Free Korea sums up quite well at his site Fowle’s stupidity.

I am happy to see that Fowle has returned to his family and hopefully this serves as a lesson to anyone else who thinks it is “cool” to travel to North Korea:

The State Department announced Tuesday that the 56-year-old Miamisburg resident had been released. The news came about six months after he was taken into custody after leaving a Bible at a nightclub. Christian evangelism is considered a crime in North Korea.

He had been awaiting trial — the only one of three Americans held by Pyongyang who had not been convicted of charges.

The two others were each sentenced to years in North Korean prisons after court trials that lasted no more than 90 minutes. The three Americans entered North Korea separately.

Fowle was flown out of North Korea on a U.S. military jet that was spotted at Pyongyang’s international airport Tuesday by two Associated Press journalists. There was no immediate explanation for the release of Fowle, who was whisked to the U.S. territory of Guam before heading back to his wife and three children in Ohio.  [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link, but North Korean media is claiming that they released Fowle due to continuous requests from President Obama:

KCNA: Kim Jong Un freed U.S. criminal, taking into consideration the repeated requests of U.S. President Obama. #DPRK

— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) October 22, 2014

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” lang=”en”><p>A scrap from Matthew Miller&#39;s all-caps &#39;confession&#39; / failed application for full &#39;fellow-traveller&#39; status in DPRK. <a href=”http://t.co/SlgDm6Orzs”>pic.twitter.com/SlgDm6Orzs</a></p>&mdash; Adam Cathcart (@adamcathcart) <a href=”https://twitter.com/adamcathcart/status/511459634914144256″>September 15, 2014</a></blockquote>
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