SEOUL, South Korea - A South Korean Baptist missionary held in North Korea appeared in a government-arranged news conference in Pyongyang on Thursday, saying he had plotted to build underground churches in the isolated country to help undermine its government.
The missionary, Kim Jong-uk, 50, called himself a “criminal” and apologized for the “anti-state crime” he said he had committed against the North while working at the behest of the South’s National Intelligence Service.
North Korea announced in November that it had arrested a South Korean spy, but until Thursday it had rejected the South Korean government’s request to identify him. It was unclear whether Kim was speaking his own mind during the news conference, to which foreign journalists in Pyongyang were invited.
The North Korean government also has used such news conferences in Pyongyang or interviews with Choson Sinbo, a pro-North Korean newspaper in Japan, to let Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American missionary held in the North since late 2012, speak to the outside world.
Bae also said he apologized for his anti-North Korean “crime,” for which he was sentenced to 15 years hard labor last year, and appealed for Washington’s intervention to win his release.
Analysts said the North was using Thursday’s news conferences to draw interest to the predicament of the detainees and force Washington to engage the North in dialogue.
Kim said at the news conference that he entered the North with Bibles and other religious materials and movies Oct. 7 and was arrested the next day.
Before that, he said, he was running an underground church in the Chinese city of Dandong, just over the North Korean border, to collect data from North Korean refugees that he would hand over to the South Korean intelligence agency. He received several thousand dollars from the agency, he said.
“I intended to change North Korea into a religious country and demolish the current North Korean government and political system,” he said, asking for the North’s leniency and his release. “I received cash from the National Intelligence Service and helped arrange North Koreans to spy for it.”
During the news conference, North Korea released video footage of North Koreans purportedly confessing to their contacts with Kim.
South Korea called for the immediate release of Kim and demanded that he have access to a lawyer, saying the detention of a religious missionary on charges of committing an anti-state crime was “difficult to understand.”
During a news briefing, Kim Eui-do, a government spokesman in Seoul, did not comment on Kim’s assertions that he had worked with South Korean intelligence or other details of his remarks. The South Korean intelligence agency had earlier denied that a missionary was held in the North while working as its spy.
Officially, North Korea says it guarantees religious freedom. Under the leadership of Kim Jong Un, however, North Korea has vowed to step up its efforts to block harmful influence from the outside, especially Christian messages.
Christian activists have been active along the Chinese-North Korean border for years, trying to recruit refugees from the North and train them as missionaries, sometimes dispatching them back into their home country to spread the gospel and operate underground churches - something that could cost them their lives if they were caught.
The missionaries also distribute food for North Korean refugees and sometimes help smuggle them for resettlement in South Korea.
Earlier this month, an Australian missionary, John Short, was detained by the North Korean authorities in Pyongyang for carrying religious materials, his family said.
Front Section, Pages 6 on 02/28/2014