North Korea Detains Fourth U.S. Citizen for ‘Hostile Acts’ Kim Hak-song works for Pyongyang University of Science and Technology By Jonathan Cheng
https://www.wsj.com/articles/north-korea-detains-u-s-citizen-for-hostile-acts-1494160366?mod=nwsrl_middle_east_news
Four U.S. citizens are currently detained in North Korea and a number of others have been held and released there since 2009.
SEOUL—North Korea’s state media said officials detained a U.S. citizen tied to a Christian-backed university in North Korea, two weeks after arresting one of his colleagues.
Saturday’s arrest of Kim Hak-song for committing “hostile acts” brings the number of known U.S. citizens detained in North Korea to four, adding another twist to troubled relations between Washington and Pyongyang as the U.S. seeks to slow the North’s nuclear and missile program.
According to Sunday’s report by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency, Mr. Kim works for the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, a university founded in 2010 by James Kim, a Korean-American Christian businessman.
Two weeks ago, North Korea detained Tony Kim, a Korean-American accounting professor at PUST, as he was preparing to depart North Korea at Pyongyang’s main international airport, citing “hostile acts.”
PUST, while not officially Christian, hires largely Christian faculty, and says on its website that “churches can support PUST through prayer and through spreading the news about this project among congregation members.”
North Korea has arrested a number of U.S. citizens doing Christian-related work in the isolated country. Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American missionary, was sentenced to 12 years’ hard labor for hostile acts, and was freed after two years in November 2014.
In 2014, American Jeffery Fowle was detained and held for six months after leaving a Bible in a nightclub bathroom.
A spokesman for PUST’s leadership confirmed Kim Hak-song’s arrest on Saturday, just as he was about to leave North Korea after a visit of several weeks. The spokesman said Mr. Kim was at PUST to do agricultural work at an experimental farm operated by the university. CONTINUE AT SITE
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