N Korea detains American for illegal entry

North Korea said it has detained an American for illegal entry, its first apparent reference to a Christian activist who crossed into the communist state on a lone rights crusade.

North Korea said on Tuesday it has detained an American for illegal entry, its first apparent reference to a Christian activist who crossed into the communist state on a lone rights crusade.

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“An American was detained after illegally entering the DPRK (North Korea) through the DPRK-China border on December 24,” Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency said in a one-paragraph report.

“He is now under investigation by a relevant organ.”

Robert Park, 28, was reported by colleagues to have crossed into the North across the frozen Tumen River from China in a one-man protest against repression in the hardline North.

Park, a US citizen of Korean ancestry, claimed he had seen a vision from God of North Korea’s liberation and redemption, his colleagues said, adding that he crossed the border shouting “I came here to proclaim God’s love”.

Park carried a letter calling on North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il to release political prisoners, shut concentration camps and take steps to improve rights and conditions, his colleagues said.

In March, two US journalists who crossed into North Korea from China while working on a story about human trafficking spent more than four months in jail for illegal entry.

They were released after Bill Clinton’s intervention.