North Korea says it has decided to free detained American missionary
By APThursday, February 4, 2010
NKorea says it will free detained US missionary
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea announced Friday that it will free an American missionary detained for illegally crossing its border on Christmas Day.
Robert Park slipped across the frozen Tumen River into the North from China carrying letters calling on North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to shut the country’s camps for political prisoners and step down from power.
The North “decided to leniently forgive and release him, taking his admission and sincere repentance of his wrong doings into consideration,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency reported Friday.
KCNA said Park stated in an interview that he trespassed into North Korea because of his “wrong understanding” of the country “caused by the false propaganda made by the West to tarnish its image.”
It quoted Park as also saying he was now convinced that “there’s complete religious freedom for all people everywhere” in North Korea, citing the return of his Bible by authorities and a service he attended at Pongsu Church in Pyongyang.
“What I have seen and heard in the (North) convinced me that I misunderstood it. So I seriously repented of the wrong I committed, taken in by the West’s false propaganda,” KCNA quoted Park as saying.
