[Ixa]

KIM SUN-MYUNG -- All he had to do was to renounce communism verbally, and he would be set free. Instead he served 45 years before being released. He was in his 70s, and his mother was still alive to see him.

An article from kimsoft.com, before he was released:

Kim Sun Myung
The World's Longest (44) Serving Political Prisoner
Kim, a N Korean soldier, was captured by S Koreans while patrolling along the front line in 1951. In 1952, after a lengthy torture and interrogation, he was sentenced to 15 years in jail for espionage. In the following year, his sentence was changed to death. His sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1954.

Today, Kim is in his 70's and in poor health. His body and spirit are at last crumbling after so many years of brutal torture and inhuman treatments. His last wish is to die in his home town in N Korea. He has spent 44 long years of solitary confinement in a S Korean prison cell less than three square yards. He has had only six visitors in 44 years.

Kim Sung Myung would have been released many years ago, if only he had renounced N Korean communism. Indeed, there are tens of thousands of former N Korean fighters (soldiers and partisans) in S Korea who aren't imprisoned.

Captured N Koreans were subjected to intense brain-washing even while in POW camps. Those who succumbed were rewarded with freedom and financial aids. A good many of them were sent back to N Korea as spies (my own eyewitness - I worked for a US spy unit i n Korea from 1953-1955). Most of those who resisted were executed (after the POW exchange) and a handful (mostly foot soldiers) were detained - our friend Kim Sung Myung belongs to the latter group.
Let the poor old man go home and die in peace!
If the S Korean Government has any shred of human decency, this is the least they can do for a fellow Korean whose only crime was to fight for "his" country.

[clanko]

Please stop talking about communism when you talk about these petty backward utalitarian state beaurocracy shitholes scattered through capitalism.

Doing so, it implies that communism kills people or is a phillosophy which advocates anything near what you see here.

Socialism from the bottom up.

[Ixa]

What the devil are you talking about, and what does it have to do with this? This person is a prisoner in capitalist south Korea. I honestly don't understand. Please rephrase.

[clanko]

All he had to do was to renounce communism verbally, and he would be set free

[Ixa]

That doesn't answer my question. What were you talking about? Rephrase. That quotation doesn't even tie in with anything you said in the previous post. In the future, avoid derailing my threads with off-topic, incoherent nonsense.

[Tim]

Why let him out? He's a bloody communist. I'm pleased South Korea leads by example.

[Spin]

I want to know about how long North Korean political prisoners serve for. Not knowing good ol KJI it wopuldnt be too long would it, before they were set free of this mortal coil..

[Sid]

I wonder if he'll renounce "Communism" if he returns to his village in North Korea and finds half his family suffering from malnutrition, or worse?

[Spin]

His son commited a political crime and all three generations are gone...

[Michel]

Clanko appears to be on mind-altering drugs, obviously.

This case is truly a disgrace.

[repr0bate]

Clones.

[Ixa]

Not knowing good ol KJI it wopuldnt be too long would it, before they were set free of this mortal

There is no death penalty in northern Korea.

I wonder if he'll renounce "Communism" if he returns to his village in North Korea and finds half his family suffering from malnutrition, or worse?

Unlikely.

[Blake]

it is strange that some of you are so ideologically entrenched that it becomes a more powerful force to you than being human. I would feel as disgusted at this if it were a capitalist in a North Korean prison.

Why, when faced with something that seems to discredit their side, must you all start playing moral relativism? Are you so far gone that you cannot admit that it is wrong to capture a man from his own country, imprison him for decades, torture him, refuse to let him go and die in his homeland because he has an opposing ideology to yours?

[glinert]

Although maybe his beliefs I not so happy about and not so like I really like that he stands up for them. This shows good man.

[Korimyr the Rat]

Although maybe his beliefs I not so happy about and not so like I really like that he stands up for them. This shows good man.

Indeed. A belief you will not die to defend is no belief at all.

it is strange that some of you are so ideologically entrenched that it becomes a more powerful force to you than being human. I would feel as disgusted at this if it were a capitalist in a North Korean prison.

Is it so strange? I see it as very normal human behavior, however unfortunate.