North Korea To Free Australian Evangelist

North Korea To Free Australian Evangelist

By Sid Astbury and Dirk Godder

SEOUL, South Korea — An Australian missionary arrested in North Korea last month for distributing Christian pamphlets is to be released, Pyongyang’s state-run media said Monday.

John Short, 75, had confessed to his “criminal behavior,” and was being freed partly on account of his age, according to North Korea’s official news agency KCNA.

Short traveled to North Korea from his home in Hong Kong with fellow missionary Wang Chong, before being detained on February 18.

The travel agency that booked the trip told Australian national broadcaster ABC that Short, who had Korean-language Christian pamphlets with him, admitted to North Korean officials that tourism was not the sole reason for his journey.

Wang was allowed to leave but Short is being held in Pyongyang.

Missionary work is illegal in North Korea. Kenneth Bae, a Korean-born American evangelist, was sentenced to 15 years hard labor in April after being found guilty of trying to overthrow the Pyongyang regime.

AFP Photo/Woohae Cho

Advertising

Start your day with National Memo Newsletter

Know first.

The opinions that matter. Delivered to your inbox every morning

Moms For Libertine! And Why We Will Never Run Out Of Pious Frauds

Bridget Ziegler

It’s gotten to where it’s almost axiomatic in American politics: Show me somebody who gets TV face-time railing against others’ sexual sins, and I’ll show you somebody hiding naughty secrets. The latest example is an amusing scandal involving “Moms for Liberty,” the Florida-based right-wing organization that made its name by publicizing what this column described as “queers under the bed and the preposterous idea that the nation’s public-school librarians and grade-school teachers are plotting the sexual subversion of small children.”

Keep reading...Show less
Donald Trump
Photo by The White House

The latest ad from The Lincoln Project is titled “Feeble,” and it strings together a collection of Donald Trump’s “greatest hits” when it comes to stumbling over words, lurching around the podium, and repeatedly forgetting that Barack Obama is no longer president. While showcasing Trump’s two-handed efforts to sip from a water bottle and his running into the backdrop of a rally stage, the narrator asks questions like “Are you sure you don’t have dementia?” She also whispers that “[i]t runs in the family.”

Keep reading...Show less
{{ post.roar_specific_data.api_data.analytics }}