Civic Group Urges NK to Release Detainee
By Kang Hyun-kyung
Staff Reporter
About 1,200 people, including 150 lawmakers, have signed up to urge North Korea to release a South Korean, who has been held in the North for the past four months, organizers said Sunday.
A Seoul-based human rights group launched a nationwide campaign for the detainee after the Ministry of Unification called the detention as a top priority in inter-Korean talks to resolve issues regarding the operation of the joint Gaeseong Industrial Complex.
During the talks, North Korean officials declined to give details of the circumstances facing the detainee, a Hyundai Asan worker who was identified only as Yoo, simply saying he was doing fine.
The South Korean worker who was detained by North Korea on March 30 for criticizing its political regime and soliciting North Korean workers to defect to the South.
The non-partisan group Citizens Alliance for North Korea Human Rights (CANHR) began the campaign for Yoo on July 16.
``We have no idea if the South Korean worker is doing fine or healthy. We are not even informed where he is now,'' said CANHR activist Park Soo-jin.
Park said her organization launched the campaign to remind the public of the fact that the problem is not settled yet and the South Korean worker lives under uncertainty. The campaign is to be continued until Aug. 15.
Earlier, the unification ministry stressed on several occasions that the detainee issue is a top priority when dealing with issues related to the Gaeseong complex.
Critics, however, say the government was slow and inactive when it came to the issue, compared with the U.S. government's response to two American journalists who were sentenced to 12 years in prison in June for an unspecified act of hostility and illegaly crossing the border line.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on July 10 that America was seeking amnesty for the two, Laura Ling and Euna Lee. ``What we hope for now is that these two young women will be granted amnesty through the North Korean system and be allowed to return home to their families as soon as possible,'' Clinton was quoted as saying.
After the two American journalists were sentenced to hard labor in June, the White House also said the Obama administration considers the detention a humanitarian issue and is working to win the release of the two journalists.
Lee Jong-joo, the unification ministry's spokeswoman, told The Korea Times that the two cases are separate.
``The North claimed that American journalists broke North Korean law. But the case involving the South Korean detainee is about an inter-Korean agreement,'' Lee said in an effort to clarify the difference between the two cases.
Lee denied the accusation the Korean government was inactive, stressing Minister Hyun In-taek addressed the issue publicly on several occasions.