Tag: detainees

North Korea always seems to find a way to bash churches even when a dumb ass college student decides to travel to North Korea and steal a propaganda poster.  I would be very surprised if this confession is actually true:

A detained American student tearfully apologised for attempting to steal a political banner in North Korea from his hotel after being paraded in front of the media in Pyongyang.

Otto Warmbier, 21, an undergraduate at the University of Virginia, was arrested in January for committing what North Korea called “an anti-state crime” with “the tacit connivance of the US government and under its manipulation”.

Warmbier said on Monday that he wanted the banner with a political slogan on it as a trophy for a church back home. He said that he was offered a second-hand car worth $10,000 and was told if he was arrested and did not return, $200,000 would be paid to his mother.  [Al Jazeera]

You can read more at the link.

Maybe they are spies or are just making a false confession under duress, but the fact that the North Koreans are publicizing this shows that they want to use them as bargaining chips in future negotiations:

Two South Koreans detained in North Korea told CNN on Sunday that they spied for South Korea.

South Korea has flatly rejected the accusations and urged Pyongyang to release them.

The interviews came after North Korea announced on Saturday that it arrested a South Korean student studying in the U.S. on charges of illegal entry into the country, the fourth South Korean citizen detained in the North.

South Korean missionary Kim Jung-wook has been held there since October 2013.

Sunday’s interviews as well as the new detention could be an attempt by Pyongyang to pressure South Korea to shift its policy toward the communist nation. The North could also use the detainees as a negotiating chip should inter-Korean talks reopen.

When announcing last month the arrest of the two CNN interviewees — Kim Kuk-gi and Choe Chun-gil — North Korea accused them of working as spies for South Korea’s main intelligence agency National Intelligence Service (NIS), branding them “heinous terrorists.”

In Sunday’s interviews, both Kim, 61, and Choe, 56, admitted to the charges against them and said they would accept any punishment the North Korean government decided. North Korean minders were present during the interviews, CNN said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Should someone who willing goes into North Korea and does something stupid be considered a hostage?

A U.S. House lawmaker has introduced a bill that appoints a federal officer charged with overseeing efforts to win the release of American citizens held by hostile groups and rogue states like North Korea.

The Hostage Recovery Improvement Act (H.R.1498), introduced by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) late last month with support from 11 co-sponsors, calls for the president to designate “an existing federal officer to coordinate efforts to secure the release of U.S. citizens who are hostages of hostile groups or state sponsors of terrorism.”

The “Interagency Hostage Recovery Coordinator” should be named within 60 days after the bill’s enactment.

While defining the term “state sponsors of terrorism,” the bill singled out North Korea as a country that should be considered a terrorism sponsor nation under the act, even though the communist nation is no longer on the State Department’s list of states sponsoring terrorism.

U.S. citizens have often been detained in North Korea.  [Yonhap]

You can read the rest at the link.

The North Koreans claim that the two South Koreans they have detained were not kidnapped from China, but instead detained inside of North Korea:

South Korea on Friday urged North Korea to immediately release two of its citizens detained in the country over alleged espionage, the latest in a series of arrests in the North of foreign nationals.

The North’s state media said late Thursday that the two were detained last year for allegedly collecting confidential state information and attempting to spread “bourgeois lifestyle and culture” in the North at the order of South Korea’s spy agency and the U.S. It identified the men as Kim Kuk Gi and Choe Chun Gil and said the two acknowledged their acts during what was described as a news conference in Pyongyang.

North Korea has occasionally detained South Koreans, Americans and other foreigners on accusations of spying in what analysts say are attempts to wrest outside concessions. Authorities in Pyongyang in the past staged news conferences, during which foreign detainees appeared before the media and made statements that they recant after their releases.

On Friday, South Korea’s Unification Ministry confirmed that Kim and Choe were South Korean citizens but denied they were engaged in espionage operations. Ministry officials could not explain how the two ended up in the North.

“We strongly demand North Korea to quickly release our citizens Kim Kuk Gi and Choe Chun Gil and repatriate them without hesitation,” ministry spokesman Lim Byeong Cheol told reporters in Seoul.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, the country’s main spy agency, denied the North’s accusations of spying.

The North’s Korean Central News Agency said Kim was detained in September in Pyongyang and Choe near the border with China in December.  [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link, but if true that they were detained inside of North Korea than I believe the ROK government shouldn’t feel pressured to have them released.  If people are stupid enough to travel inside North Korea than they need to be prepared to accept the consequences.

I wonder if the North Koreans will demand that the other American detainees will need to pay bills as well?

North Korea has sent a U.S. citizen who was detained in Pyongyang last year a 3.6million won ($3,241) bill, according to a recently published book which reveals the story of the detainee.

Merrill Newman, 86, visited Pyongyang for a tour last year, but was held in the Yanggakdo Hotel for 42 days on charges of espionage from Oct. 26, 2013.

The book, “last P.O.W.,” written by a former CNN correspondent Mike Chinoy, reveals that Pyongyang sent the U.S. Department of State a bill for Newman’s stay via the Swedish ambassador in Pyongyang. The Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang plays a role in protecting U.S. people there.

The bill includes $2,610 for the room, $591 for meals, $14 for dessert, and even $3 for “lost plates.” The tourist season rate of $75 a day was charged for six days and the ordinary season rate of $60 was applied for the other 36 days. The bill also includes $23 for international phone calls he made to his wife in the U.S.

The 86-year-old detainee, however, left the bill unpaid after he confirmed with the State Department that paying would not help then detainees, Kenneth Bae and Mathew Miller, the book reads.  [Korea Times]

Interesting interview in the Wall Street Journal from US intelligence chief James Clapper in regards to his trip to North Korea to get the two detained Americans released:

At 3 p.m. last Saturday, a North Korean official went to the State Guesthouse in Pyongyang to instruct U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and his small team to pack their bags. On a secret mission to secure the freedom of two Americans imprisoned by the regime, Mr. Clapper thought at that moment that he might be sent home empty-handed.

Instead, he emerged from the trip with the Americans in his custody. He also got a glimpse into a closed country the U.S. has for years struggled to understand. He is the only U.S. intelligence official ever invited to North Korea.

Mr. Clapper revealed details of the trip in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. The North Koreans seemed disappointed when he arrived without a broader peace overture in hand, he said. At the same time, they didn’t ask for anything specific in return for the prisoners’ release.

U.S. officials say the mission, which few officials within the Obama administration knew about until Mr. Clapper was returning, wasn’t meant to signal any change in the U.S.’s approach to the reclusive North.

Mr. Clapper’s earlier conversations with older North Korean officials on his one-day trip had been contentious. He heard what he called a far more “tempered” tone from a younger North Korean whom he described as an interlocutor and who accompanied him on the 40-minute drive back to the airport at the trip’s end. He said the interlocutor expressed regret that the North and South remained split and asked Mr. Clapper if he’d return to Pyongyang. (Wall Street Journal)

You can read more at the link, but Clapper’s revelation about the younger North Korean in the article I am surprised by because it could get this person in trouble with his superiors if he was not supporting the regime narrative.

I also found of interest the fact that Clapper never spoke with Bae or Miller while flying back on the airplane. I bet he was probably disgusted with what they had done to put the U.S. Government in such a position to get them released.