Families demand N.K. immediately release S. Korean detainees

SEOUL, Aug. 7 (Yonhap) -- Relatives of South Koreans previously abducted by North
Korea on Friday urged Pyongyang to immediately release those currently being held
in the communist state.

North Korea has been holding a 44-year-old South Korean worker, identified only
by his surname Yu, since late March on charges of criticizing the North's
political system and attempting to persuade a female North Korean worker to
defect to the South. He was detained at the troubled inter-Korean industrial park
in the border town of Kaesong.
Pyongyang has refused to give information on Yu's whereabouts and has
consistently denied requests by Seoul for access to him.
North Korea is also holding four crewmen of a squid-fishing boat that was taken
to a port on the country's east coast last week after straying 13km past the
inter-Korean maritime border. North Korea has said that the men are under
"investigation."
"We are very concerned about the possibility that (those detained in the North)
may have to suffer an unimaginable amount of pain as we did," the families said.
They also slammed North Korea for treating the issue of South Korean and American
detainees differently.
"The Kim Jong-il regime's anti-humanitarian behavior and double standards, which
bring shame as we are of the same people, should be duly criticized," the group
said.
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton went into Pyongyang on Tuesday and
successfully won the release of two American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna
Lee, who were captured at the North Korea-China border on March 17 while working
on a news story about refugees fleeing out of North Korea. They arrived in the
U.S. on Wednesday.
North Korea kidnapped hundreds of the South Korean citizens in the decades
following the 1950-53 Korean War, according to the Unification Ministry.
Officials estimate there are 540 South Korean prisoners of war still alive in the
North. Pyongyang denies holding any South Korean nationals against their will.
South Korea returned 63 unconvicted North Korean prisoners, mostly Korean War
prisoners or intelligence agents, as a sign of peace and reconciliation following
the first inter-Korean summit in 2000.
odissy@yna.co.kr
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