SALON

Thursday, Jul 5, 2012 12:15 PM UTC

South Korean arrested for unapproved trip to North

By

Topics: From the Wires,

South Korean arrested for unapproved trip to NorthActivist No Su-hui, center, shouts "Long Live Reunification" in front of North Korean officials and soldiers, foreground, before crossing the demarcation line between North and South Korea where South Korean officials, at rear, were waiting for him, at the Demilitarized Zone at Panmunjom, Korea, on Thursday, July 5, 2012. South Korean officials immediately detained the activist for making an extended trip to Pyongyang without South Korean government approval as required by law. (AP Photo/Kim Kwang Hyon) (Credit: Kim Kwang Hyon)

PANMUNJOM, Korea (AP) — Shouting “Long live reunification,” a South Korean activist who spent more than three months in North Korea without his government’s approval stepped over the line dividing the North and South, and then was promptly arrested Thursday.

The stunt by No Su-hui, 68, was designed to draw attention to the division of the Korean Peninsula. He had gone to Pyongyang from China in March without Seoul’s permission, defying a law that prohibits South Koreans from traveling to North Korea without government approval, officials in Seoul said. He was arrested immediately after his return, police in Seoul said.

Associated Press photos showed South Korean officials in suits grabbing a defiant and resistant No just after he stepped over the demarcation line inside the Demilitarized Zone as South Korean soldiers snapped photographs at close distance. From the North Korean side, soldiers and officials stood watching the melee as crowds of North Koreans waved white “unified Korea” flags.

Turning around to face crowds of cheering North Koreans before stepping over the line, No raised his arms and shouted “Long live reunification,” a white unified Korea flag in his right hand and a bouquet of flowers in his left. Behind him on the South Korean side, South Korean soldiers stood in taekwondo poses, their eyes concealed behind dark sunglasses.

No, who serves as vice chairman of South Korea’s Pan-Alliance for Korea’s Reunification, was dressed in a gray suit and white tie, a pin of unified Korea — a symbol of reunification — on his jacket. His pointed decision to cross back through the truce village of Panmunjom was a highly symbolic move designed to draw attention to his cause. Most tourists must enter and exit North Korea via China.

The Korean Peninsula has remained in a state of war since a truce ended three years of fighting in 1953. After a decade of warming ties, relations have soured since a new conservative administration took office in Seoul in 2008. Following the sinking of a South Korean warship in 2010 that killed 46 sailors, which South Korea blames on the North, Seoul has severed nearly all ties with Pyongyang.

Only a handful of South Koreans have been granted permission to visit Pyongyang in recent years, including two delegations that went to pay their respects to late leader Kim Jong Il after his December death. Last year, a Christian minister was sentenced to prison for making a similar unauthorized trip, and Seoul officials have said No will face punishment.

According to South Korea’s National Security Law, sneaking into North Korea without government permission is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, while praising the country could draw seven years.

North Korea has accused South Korean President Lee Myung-bak of being a traitor to the cause of reunification.

No, who went to Pyongyang to pay his respects to Kim on the 100th day after his death, visited major tourist sites and met with North Korean officials during his visit, North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said.

In the South Korean border city of Paju, hundreds of anti-North Korean protesters rallied against No’s return, slashing his photo and burning mock figures of No and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

___

Associated Press photographers Kim Kwang Hyon in Panmunjom and Hye Soo Nah in Paju, South Korea, contributed to this report.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments are not enabled for this story.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
FBI reportedly joins Bachmann campaign finance probe
222 points223 points | 13 comments
vote
Jon Karl makes things worse: He regrets “inaccurate” Benghazi email but says his story based on it “still entirely stands.” Really. ABC News?
193 points194 points | 29 comments
vote
Paul Krugman’s right: Austerity kills. "In an economy where we’re all in the same boat, one person’s spending is another person’s income. So when the government cuts spending, it reduces people’s income, leading to less business, more unemployment, and a vicious spiral of slowing down the economy."
198 points199 points | 134 comments
vote
“Jodorowsky’s Dune”: The sci-fi classic that never was.
79 points80 points | 16 comments
vote
Doug Henwood: Capitalism Thrives on Class Exploitation
46 points47 points | 7 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations