Three Korean American evangelicals held as prisoners in North Korea for at least a year are now home, President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday.
Media sources in USA report that the move is viewed as a goodwill gesture ahead of a historic summit between Mr Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un.
Kim Hak-song, Tony Kim and Kim Dong-chul boarded the plane “without assistance”, the White House said.
The three Christians spent between a year and three years detained in North Korea, according to CBN News, and two previously worked at a private university in the country’s capital, according to Christianity Today.
The Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST) is mostly staffed by Christian professors who are forced to keep their faith private due to the dictatorship’s severe restrictions on religious expression.
Kim Hak-song was held on suspicion of “hostile acts” in May 2017.
He, according to media sources, described himself as a Christian missionary who intended to start an experimental farm at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST).
Tony Kim, also known as Kim Sang-duk, was detained in April 2017 on espionage charges. According to South Korean media, he had been involved in humanitarian work in the North.
Kim Dong-chul, a pastor in his early 60s, was detained in 2015 on spying charges, and was then sentenced to 10 years hard labour.
South Korea’s presidential Blue House, according to the BBC, welcomed the release of the Americans, saying it would have a “positive effect” for upcoming negotiations.
Blue House spokesman Yoon Young-chan also called upon the North to release six South Korean prisoners.
“In order to reinforce reconciliation between South Korea and North Korea and to spread peace on the Korean peninsula, we wish for a swift repatriation of South Korean detainees,” Mr Yoon said, in a statement provided to the BBC.
Trump took to social media and said that all three of the released prisoners “seem to be in good health,” a contrast to the last American released—college student Otto Warmbier—who was in a coma and died days after arriving back in the United States last June.
North Korea ranks as the worst country for Christian persecution on the annual Open Doors World Watch List, and the organization estimates that beyond the foreign nationals detained there, many of the country’s own citizens—including around 50,000 believers—are being held in detention centers, prisons, or political camps.
Christian commentators however believe that since South and North Korea relations have been revamped by the two presidents; Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in, conditions for North Korean citizens–and particularly Christians–will improve.
aaron@ugchristiannews.com
