North Korea sentences a Canadian pastor to life in prison. His crime?
After facing a 90-minute trial in North Korea鈥檚 highest court, Canadian pastor Hyeon Soo Lim was sentenced to a life term of hard labor in a North Korean prison for committing 鈥�.鈥�
The pastor, who is of South Korean origin, lives in Toronto but has traveled to Pyongyang for humanitarian aid missions for nearly two decades. Mr. Lim was head of the Light Korean Presbyterian Church, and had last traveled to Pyongyang on Jan. 31, 2015 before being detained during the Ebola outbreak.聽
Lim is married with one son and has been an evangelical pastor in Toronto for 28 years. According to his family, his visits to North Korea were to support a nursing home, nursery, and orphanage. His most recent trip was to establish an aid project in the northeastern city of Rajin.
鈥淚t was not a political trip, it was about helping people,鈥� Lisa Pak, a pastor at Light Korean and church spokeswoman told 海角大神 in March. 鈥淗e doesn鈥檛 hide [his faith] but he doesn鈥檛 advertise it. He doesn鈥檛 say he鈥檚 a pastor. He鈥檚 a humanitarian in Korea. He isn鈥檛 鈥楻everend,鈥� he鈥檚 Mr. Hyeon. We think [Korean authorities] know who he is.鈥�
Lim has been detained since February, and the North Korean government news agency reported that he admitted to using his humanitarian work as a 鈥� in a sinister bid to build a religious state.鈥澛�
鈥淭he supreme court announced that Lim was guilty of joining the United States and South Korea in anti-[North Korean] human rights 鈥榬acket鈥� and fabricating and ,鈥� the Chinese state news agency聽Xinhua reported.
He reportedly confessed on national North Korean television to plotting to overthrow the state, stating, 鈥� with the love of 鈥楪od.鈥� 鈥�
Lim鈥檚 church began its mission in North Korea in 1996, and its charity work was reportedly under the protection of Jang Song-thaek, leader Kim Jong-un鈥檚 uncle who was executed by Kim 14 months ago. 聽
North Korean authorities are highly sensitive to any potential cases of proselytizing; Lim is only the most recent case in what is becoming a common practice of foreigners in North Korea being detained for 鈥渟ubversion.鈥�
In September 2014, American Matthew Todd Miller was sentenced to six years鈥� hard labor for committing 鈥渉ostile acts鈥� 鈥� he left a Bible in his hotel room 鈥� but was released two months later. Similarly, American Kenneth Bae was arrested in November 2012 for unspecified 鈥渉ostile acts,鈥� and was hospitalized after losing 50 pounds in labor camps. Mr. Bae was released along with Mr. Miller.
The sentence comes just weeks after Mr. Kim announced his country had become a "powerful nuclear weapons state ready to detonate a hydrogen bomb." The statement has not yet been confirmed, however.聽
