Rev. Han Sang-ryol was sentenced to five years in prison last week for entering North Korea on June 12 without government approval. Han said he made the trip to attend a joint ceremony marking the 10th anniversary of a historic inter-Korean summit on June 15, 2000.
Han, 61, was arrested when he returned home after staying in North Korea for more than two months. In the North, he gave a series of speeches praising its communist regime and denouncing the Lee Myung-bak government in the South.
"Rev. Han`s act is a righteous and appropriate one aimed at sticking to principles of the 6.15 joint declaration (of the inter-Korean summit) and achieving reconciliation, unity and unification," said a North Korean committee established to execute agreements made by the two Koreas during the talks.
"Given that persecution on pro-unification activists continues, we cannot expect any genuine improvement in human rights or inter-Korean relations," the committee said in a statement carried by the North`s Korean Central News Agency.
Pro-unification activists of both Koreas had jointly marked the June summit until the conservative government of President Lee took office in South Korea in 2008 with a get-tough policy toward the North.
Han`s trip to the North came as relations between the two Koreas were at their lowest point in years after the South condemned the North over the deadly sinking of its warship Cheonan in March.
The two Koreas are technically still at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty. South Korea`s law prohibits its citizens from going to the North without government approval and from doing any acts that sympathize with Pyongyang.
(KR-FNY/M016/A038)
Editor: Aditia Maruli Radja
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
