On the 20th, it will be 4,000 days since South Korean missionary Kim Jung Wook, 60, was captured and detained in North Korea, as reported by Yonhap News.
Kim Jung Wook is the longest-held South Korean citizen in North Korea. Among the six South Koreans detained alongside him, including Kim Kook Ki and Choi Chun Gil, he has spent the most time imprisoned in the country.
Arrested on October 8, 2013, while engaged in relief and missionary activities, Kim received a life sentence of hard labor on May 30, 2014, for multiple charges, including conspiracy to overthrow the state, anti-state propaganda, and illegal border crossing.
Since his detention, Kim’s family has not received any news about him. They do not even know if he is alive. North Korean authorities claim that Kim has been punished according to due legal process. Still, they severely violated human rights by not providing any basic information regarding his or other detainees’ status or well-being and having denied consular access.
Having spent over 4,000 days in North Korea since his imprisonment at age 49, Kim turned 60 while detained. His family has long awaited his safe return. His brother, Kim Jung Sam, shared in a phone call on Thursday, “I particularly think of my brother during the holidays,” adding, “As my brother suffers for such a long time, I hope more people will take an interest in his return.”
During the Moon Jae In administration, as inter-Korean relations improved and summits were held, families hoped for the release of detainees, including Kim Jung Wook. However, North Korea has taken no action in response to these appeals. Even amid improved relations, the North has completely ignored families’ urgent requests for information about detainees’ well-being.
The Yoon Suk Yeol administration has made North Korea’s human rights issues a national agenda and is actively raising the issue of detainees in the international community. They have pressured North Korea by mentioning detainees in various diplomatic forums and discussions on human rights at the United Nations. Notably, they plan to focus on the issue of detainees during the upcoming Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of North Korea at the UN in November.
On Tuesday, Ambassador Yun Seong Deok, the head of the Korean delegation in Geneva, urged during a dialogue with the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention at the UN Geneva office, “North Korea must immediately release the six detained South Koreans.” At this meeting, the U.S. representative also mentioned the 4,000 days of Kim Jung Wook’s detention and demanded his release.
In addition to Kim Jung Wook, the statuses of Kim Kuk Gi and Choi Chun Gil, as well as three North Korean defectors detained in 2016, remain unconfirmed. Meanwhile, detainees with U.S. and Canadian citizenship have already been released.
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