South Korean missionaries Choi Chun-gil, Kim Jong-Uk and Kim Kuk-gi (pictured from left), who are serving life sentences in labour camp in North Korea, will be among the recipients of the 4th Graciela Fernandez Meijide Human Rights Award.
The award was established in 2023 in honour of Graciela Fernández Meijide, an Argentine human rights activist, teacher and politician who investigated victims of forced disappearance (including her son) during the military dictatorship. It aims to raise international awareness of those detained for political reasons under authoritarian regimes, and this year’s award ceremony is scheduled for August.
On 7 April, families of the three missionaries gathered in the South Korean city of Incheon for an interview with Chosun Daily newspaper, a meeting that was arranged after the Argentine organisation Centre for the Opening and Development of Latin America (CADAL) announced in March that the three missionaries had been selected as recipients of its award.
Their families responded, “The mere fact that people on the other side of the globe remember us has been a great source of strength.”
The three missionaries were working to support North Korean defectors and running underground churches in the Dandong area of China when North Korean authorities arrested them in 2013 and 2014. The North Korean Central Court (which functions as the country’s Supreme Court) sentenced each of them to life imprisonment in labour camp and since then their families have been unable to confirm their survival.
Baptist missionary Kim Jong Uk (62) was arrested in October 2013 after entering North Korea with religious materials and was sentenced in May 2014; Presbyterian pastor Kim Kuk-gi (72) was arrested in October 2014 on espionage charges and was sentenced in June 2015; businessman and missionary Choi Chun-gil (70) was arrested in December 2014 on espionage charges and was also sentenced in June 2015.
Choi Chun-gil’s son Choi Jin-young (36) told Chosun Daily, “I postponed my wedding planned for last year by one year. I wondered if my father might return. Now, I can wait no longer and will hold the ceremony in October. If my father returns, I want to show him a respectable family living well.” The last time he saw his father was when he was still in high school. His father, who frequently travelled abroad for missionary work, gave him pocket money and stationery before leaving – years later he learned his father had been taken to North Korea.
Kim Jong Uk’s older brother Kim Jeong-sam (65) recalled the last time he saw him: in September 2013, before the Korean harvest festival of Chuseok, he urged his brother, who had briefly returned to South Korea from China, to “at least pay respects to our father before leaving”. Kim Jong Uk replied, “I don’t have time this trip,” and left. He was taken to North Korea less than two weeks later, on 8 October, and never again saw his father, who died in 2018. For over a decade Kim Jeong-sam has visited churches and civic groups, raising awareness about his brother’s plight and organising petition campaigns appealing for his release.
Kim Kuk-gi’s wife Kim Hee-soon (72) could not attend the gathering at Incheon as she is undergoing treatment in Suncheon in South Jeolla province, but Chosun Daily notes that two years ago she wrote a public letter to her husband beginning, “My dear husband, tears flow as I write…”
The missionaries’ families sometimes gather in Suncheon to hold worship services and spend the night together – “Wives waiting for husbands, children for fathers, and brothers for siblings cling to one another, enduring the hardship,” as Chosun Daily comments.
The families spoke of their disappointment with the South Korean government’s response to their situation. Last year controversy erupted when President Lee Jae Myung said in an interview that he had never heard of the three missionaries’ detention. The presidential office later explained that it was a “confusion with other detention cases”. Choi Jin-young commented, “What matters more than explanations is what actions the government will take moving forward.”
UN condemns arbitrary detention
In March 2025 the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention adopted an opinion that the detention of the three missionaries constituted “arbitrary detention”. It judged that their detention, without legal grounds, violated their rights to freedom of expression and religion and to a fair trial. It recommended corrective measures including release within six months, but North Korea has not complied.
Read Prisoner Profiles of Choi Chun-gil, Kim Jong Uk and Kim Kuk-gi.
(Chosun Daily, Church in Chains Prisoner Profiles)
Photos: Choi Chun-gil (Republic of Korea Ministry of Unification), Kim Jong-Uk (Voice of the Martyrs Korea), Kim Kuk-gi (Internationale Gesellschaft für Menschenrechte)