President criticized for ignorance of S. Koreans detained in NK

President Lee Jae Myung answers questions during a press conference with foreign correspondents at Cheong Wa Dae in Jongno District, central Seoul, Wednesday. Yonhap

President Lee Jae Myung fielded most questions with confidence at Wednesday’s press conference with foreign correspondents.

That changed when NK News' Chad O’Carroll asked what Lee’s message was to the families of South Koreans detained in North Korea — and what he would do differently to help bring them home, after three prior administrations failed to secure their release.

“This is the first time I’m hearing about this,” Lee replied. “It happened so long ago that I lack detailed information. I will look into the situation further before making any judgment.”

The prolonged failure — spanning more than a decade and four administrations, from Park Geun-hye and Moon Jae-in to Yoon Suk Yeol and Lee — to bring them home is raising questions about whether the government is fulfilling its duty to protect its constituents, experts and activists say.

The presidential office said in a belated press release Thursday that three missionaries and three North Korean defectors were detained on espionage and other charges between 2013 and 2016.

With the government unable to confirm whether they are alive, the detainees remain imprisoned without basic rights guaranteed under international law — including legal counsel, consular access and communication with family.

“Since hearing in 2019 that his health had worsened, I have had no news of my brother and am holding on through prayer,” Kim Jeong-sam, the older brother of missionary Kim Jung-wook, who was detained in 2013 while assisting North Koreans, was quoted in a Korean media report as saying.

Lee Heon-hwan, a law professor at Ajou University, said that the detention of South Koreans in North Korea violates South Korea's duty to protect its nationals.

“Under basic constitutional principles, if our citizens face unjust harm from North Korea or any other country, the government is obligated to act,” Lee said.

Lee Min-bok, a North Korean human rights activist of more than 35 years, said those entering from the free world face far greater psychological and physical pressure than people originally in the North.

“If North Korea refuses to repatriate them, we must keep raising the issue and drawing international attention,” said the activist, who defected in 1995. “It was deeply shocking that the president was unaware of the situation.”

O’Carroll, who has run the North Korea-focused outlet NK News for 15 years, told The Korea Times that seeing the detainees in North Korean state media prompted his question.

He added that if people stop talking about the issue, it will be forgotten, while most of the South Koreans detained in the North continue to endure what are effectively life sentences of hard labor.

“Imagine today, minus 10 degrees, you're out chopping wood, breaking stones. That’s what these guys are having to do,” O’Carroll said.

U.S. President Donald Trump, center, walks with three U.S. detainees released by North Korea upon their arrival at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, May 10, 2018. From left are Tony Kim, Kim Hak-song and Kim Dong-chul. EPA-Yonhap

The Ministry of Unification said Thursday that the government recognizes the urgency of resolving the detainee issue and is pursuing a solution through dialogue with the North.

It added that Seoul repeatedly raised the matter whenever inter-Korean talks were taking place — including at high-level talks in 2018, when Pyongyang said it was under review.

A ministry official declined to comment on the president's unfamiliarity with the situation, adding that the government is not considering linking the detainees’ release to the repatriation of unconverted long-term prisoners in South Korea.

This year, six former North Korean agents and South Korean far-left activists who spent decades in prison without renouncing their ideological beliefs asked the ministry to send them to North Korea.

Some foreign nationals detained by North Korea during the same period and afterward were released after efforts by their governments.

Two Americans were freed in 2014 after James Clapper, then U.S. director of national intelligence, traveled to Pyongyang. When American tourist Otto Warmbier, imprisoned by North Korea in 2016, fell into a vegetative state the following year, he was released to the U.S. and died soon after. In 2018, then-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo played a key role in the release of three Korean Americans.

In 2018, a Japanese tourist was freed following diplomatic efforts by the Japanese government through its embassy in Beijing. In 2019, Alek Sigley, an Australian studying at Kim Il Sung University, was detained for nine days before Swedish diplomats negotiated his release.