North Korea
said on Sunday it has detained another American citizen on suspicion of acts
against the state, which if confirmed would make him the fourth U.S. citizen to
be
held by the isolated country amid diplomatic tensions.
held by the isolated country amid diplomatic tensions.
Kim Hak
Song, who was detained on Saturday, worked for the Pyongyang University of
Science and Technology, the North's KCNA news agency said.
"A
relevant institution of the DPRK detained American citizen Kim Hak Song on May
6 under a law of the DPRK on suspension of his hostile acts against it,"
KCNA said. DPRK is short for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North
Korea's official name.
A third U.S.
citizen, Kim Sang Dok, who was associated with the same school, was detained in
late April for hostile acts, according to the North's official media.
The reported
detention comes as tensions on the Korean peninsula run high, driven by harsh
rhetoric from Pyongyang and Washington over the North's pursuit of nuclear
weapons in response to what it says is a threat of U.S.-instigated war.
The
Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST) was founded by
evangelical Christians and opened in 2010. Its students are generally children
of the country's elite.
The
volunteer faculty of PUST, many of whom are evangelical Christians, has a
curriculum that includes subjects once considered taboo in North Korea, such as
capitalism. The college is an unlikely fit in a country that has been condemned
by the U.S. State Department for cracking down on freedom of religion.
A message by
Kim Hak Song dated February 2015 on the website of a Korean-Brazilian church in
Sao Paulo said he was a Christian missionary planning to start an experimental
farm at PUST and was trying to help the North Korean people learn to become
self-sufficient.
No further
details were available about the circumstances related to the arrests of the
two men associated with the college. A spokesman for PUST was not immediately
available for comment.
North Korea,
which has been criticized for its human rights record, has in the past used
detained Americans to extract high-profile visits from the United States, with
which it has no formal diplomatic relations.
The other
two Americans already held in North Korea are Otto Warmbier, a 22-year-old
student and Kim Dong Chul, a 62-year-old Korean-American missionary.
Warmbier was
detained in January 2016 and sentenced to 15 years hard labour for attempting
to steal a propaganda banner.
Two months
later, Kim Dong Chul was sentenced to 10 years hard labour for subversion.
Neither has appeared in public since their sentencing.
REUTERS
REUTERS
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