Published on: 25 April 2017
DOHI News by Britta Milovansev
American citizen, Tony Kim, is the latest foreign citizen to be arrested in North Korea.
Tony Kim, also known as Kim Sang Duk, who was teaching at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST) was detained at Pyongyang International Airport on Saturday morning as he was trying to fly out.
Pyongyang University is funded largely by evangelical Christians.
According to the BBC, founder and president Dr James Chin-Kyung Kim, a Korean-American Christian entrepreneur, was invited by the regime to build a university based on a similar one he had opened in northern China and raised much of the £20 million it cost from American and South Korean Christian charities.
According to NBC News, Kim had previously worked at China’s Yanbian University of Science and Technology (YUST), on the Chinese border with North Korea, for “many years,” according to spokeswoman Choi Maehwa.
The university’s president and faculty were “surprised” to hear Kim had been detained by authorities on the weekend.
One faculty member from the YUST School of Business, who did not want to named because of the sensitivity of the situation, said they had known Kim for 15 years and described him as a well-liked Christian who had a good reputation with teachers and students and enjoyed playing soccer, swimming and biking.
The former co-worker said Kim, in his 50s, had lived with his wife on campus for a decade-and-a-half before quitting in March, 2016. They also said the couple lived with two sons who had attended a local international school before moving to the U.S. to pursue a college education.
Kim’s detention comes amid a buildup of tension with the U.S. on the Korean Peninsula. The US and Chinese governments have repeatedly warned the North Korean regime not to conduct a sixth nuclear weapons test. Pyongyang says it has the right to develop nuclear weapons.
Kim is the third US citizen, and a Canadian citizen currently in North Korean custody.
South Korea’s Yonhap News reported that Kim was a professor at the university.
The Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang has also confirmed Kim’s detention. The embassy represents US and Canadian interests in North Korea since neither country has direct diplomatic relations.
The US State Department said on Sunday that it is working on the case and will work closely with the Swedish Embassy.
“We are aware of reports that a US citizen was detained in North Korea,” said a department official. “The protection of US citizens is one of the Department’s highest priorities.”
Otto Warmbier, 21-year-old University of Virginia student was arrested and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor while visiting N. Korea with a tour group. Kim Dong Chul, a naturalized US citizen, was arrested in 2015. He was sentenced in 2016 to 10 years of hard labor. Canadian Pastor Hyeon Soo Lim was sentenced in 2015 to a life term of hard labor.
