Canadian officials mum on release of Toronto pastor from North Korea

Laura Stone, Nathan VanderKlippe AND Josh O’Kane

OTTAWA, BEIJING and MISSISSAUGA — The Globe and Mail

Published Wednesday, Aug. 09, 2017 6:53AM EDT

Last updated Wednesday, Aug. 09, 2017 3:00PM EDT

A Toronto pastor serving a life sentence in North Korea has been freed on humanitarian grounds, the country’s state media reported Wednesday, but Canadian officials remain mum on the whereabouts and condition of Hyeon Soo Lim.

Mr. Lim’s apparent release comes after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s national security adviser Daniel Jean travelled to Pyongyang this week with a Canadian delegation to lobby for the pastor’s release. The visit coincided with escalating rhetoric between the United States and North Korea about the isolated regime’s nuclear expansion, including a dire warning from U.S. President Donald Trump who promised to counter any threat from the North with “fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

The focus of Mr. Jean’s visit was to discuss Mr. Lim’s case, a government official said Tuesday, but the delegation was also to raise “other issues of regional concern.” The Prime Minister’s Office has yet to confirm when and how Mr. Lim was released. In his early 60s, Mr. Lim is said to suffer from high blood pressure and he is believed to be in poor health.

Mr. Lim, who served in one of the largest churches in Canada, was sentenced by North Korea’s Supreme Court in December, 2015 to a lifetime of hard labour after being accused of attempting to overthrow the regime. After two-and-a-half years in prison, he was released on Wednesday, the official KCNA news agency said.

“Rim Hyon Su, a Canadian civilian, was released on sick bail according to the decision of the Central Court of the DPRK on August 9, 2017, from the humanitarian viewpoint,” KCNA said, using the country’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

There was no obvious, direct connection between the release and the standoff with the U.S., but North Korea has in the past attracted the attention of Washington, and visits by high-profile Americans, with the detention and release of U.S. citizens.

Mr. Lim’s family had become more concerned for his welfare since the death in June of American student Otto Warmbier, who had been held in North Korea for 17 months.

Mr. Warmbier, sentenced last year to 15 years’ hard labour for trying to steal a propaganda item from his hotel during a tour, died in a Cincinnati hospital just days after being released in a coma. The circumstances of his death remain unclear.

Members of Canada’s evangelical community have pushed hard for Mr. Lim’s release. In a letter to Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland dated July 11, Julia Beazley, director of public policy at The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, said concerns for Mr. Lim’s health have intensified since Mr. Warmbier’s death. Mr. Lim’s wife, Geum Young Lim, and son, Sung (James) Lim, have also asked the government to hold the case in high priority.

North Korea is still holding three Americans. The U.S. State Department said last week it would ban U.S. nationals from travelling to the isolated country, beginning in September.

Staff and members of Mississauga’s Light Korean Presbyterian Church had long been praying for Mr. Lim’s release and well-being. Assistant pastor John Bae arrived Wednesday morning for 5:30 a.m. prayers, and found out Mr. Lim had been let go an hour later.

“We were praying so hard for good news,” he told The Globe and Mail shortly after removing a “Bring Lim Home” sign from his office door. “We’re thankful for the Canadian government’s work.” He said they continue to pray for Mr. Lim’s good health.

Staff soon started fielding a flurry of thankful calls, and, by late morning, had already begun measuring interior and exterior walls to make “Welcome Home” signs. One of them will hang from the church’s northwestern entrance, across from which Mr. Lim’s Ford Explorer sat in a reserved parking spot until earlier in the day.

Just north of Toronto Pearson International Airport, Light Korean Presbyterian has nearly 3,000 members and holds services in both Korean and English. Mr. Lim was the church’s second pastor after founder Jae Hoon Park, who opened it in 1984.

Senior pastor Jason Noh has been in South Korea, staff said, having already been in Asia with church members on a missionary trip to Cambodia and India. He is now racing to get back to Canada. No official church events or celebrations are scheduled until Mr. Noh’s return either Thursday night or Friday morning.

“I’m relieved,” said Yonah Martin, a Conservative Senator, about Mr. Lim’s release. Ms. Martin is ethnically Korean and lobbied for Mr. Lim to be freed.

She said Mr. Warmbier’s death had been a “catalyst” for the release of the Canadian pastor.

Mr. Lim had his own health issues, Ms. Martin said, and had lost more than 20 kilograms in weight. Last year, Mr. Lim told CNN he spent eight hours a day digging holes at a labour camp where he had not seen any other prisoners.

His family had sent him needed medication, but was concerned that he was not receiving it. A letter sent by Mr. Lim to his family further raised concern that he was unwell.

“The tone in the letter,” Sen. Martin said, gave “the sense that his health was definitely being affected.”

“How could it not? Being away from family, away for such a long period of time after being isolated, being under watch and under hard labour in North Korea.”

Raymond Cho, a member of the Ontario legislature who has known Mr. Lim for 20 years, said he has not heard any official word about the pastor’s release but believes his failing health played a major factor.

“His health must be pretty bad, I suspect,” Mr. Cho said.

Mr. Cho said North Korea could be trying to “save face” in the international community by releasing Mr. Lim.

“I don’t think it will help if [Mr. Lim] becomes any more sick and dies there. At this stage, North Korea is getting more and more isolated after this continued missile testing and the nuclear arms program,” he said.

“All these things add together…Whatever the reason, I’m exceedingly happy he’s coming home.”

Pyongyang had reason to avoid a repeat of what happened to Mr. Warmbier.

“That incident met with major U.S. and international backlash against North Korea. It catalyzed discussions over additional human rights-focused sanctions and prompted countries to re-evaluate their policies on tourism to the North,” said Andrea Berger, senior research associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

Mr. Lim’s release comes at a time of immense tension between North Korea and the international community after the defiant regime conducted a pair of intercontinental ballistic missile tests, even as Western defence analysts concluded that it has successfully miniaturized a nuclear device that could be attached to a long-range missile.

Setting free a Canadian church leader is unlikely to change that. “This development does not seem to indicate a wider change in North Korea’s behaviour,” Ms. Berger said.

But “the North Koreans are masters of the mixed message, and letting Mr. Lim free demonstrates a compassionate gesture at the very same time Pyongyang is threatening a nuclear strike,” said Ted Lipman, former Canadian ambassador to North and South Korea.

Mr. Lipman was involved in helping to free Canadian humanitarian worker Je Yell Kim from North Korea in 2008.

He said Mr. Lim’s release should prompt a rethink of Canada’s posture toward the country. The Stephen Harper government “decided, against the recommendations of key officials and some knowledgeable civil society groups, to shun the North Korean regime,” said Mr. Lipman, who is no longer a diplomat.

Getting Mr. Lim out of North Korea “has taken a long time in coming and would have been inordinately easier if Canada had an accredited ambassador to Pyongyang,” he said.

“Serious diplomacy is about solving problems, trying to understand people you may not know very well and may not even like. Ignoring them has its costs.”

With files from Reuters

Report Typo/Error