LETTERS OF ENCOURAGEMENT REQUESTED FOR KOREAN MISSIONARY DETAINED IN RUSSIA
Voice of the Martyrs Korea, the persecution watchdog ministry which has been advocating for Korean missionary Park Tae-Yeon since her arrest in Russia in January, is asking Christians in Korea and around the world to send letters of encouragement to the missionary at the detention center where she has now been held for four months. The ministry has set up a web page containing instructions on how to write and send the letter at
“Missionary Park continues to be held in a temporary detention center for foreigners in Khabarovsk,” says Voice of the Martyrs Korea Representative Dr. Hyun Sook Foley. “She remains in good spirits and is continuing to read her Bible daily, but she really just wants to come home. While we continue to work on that goal, the main thing that can be done by Christians in Korea and around the world today is the simple task of sending her a letter of encouragement.”
Representative Foley says letters should be in Russian due to the requirements of the detention center. “We’ve put Russian phrases on the webpage which Christians can easily cut and paste to make a letter,” she says, noting that Missionary Park is fluent in Russian. Representative Foley emphasizes that only letters should be sent, since local believers have been working with family and friends to make sure the missionary receives needed personal care items that meet the detention center’s requirements.
“The detention center has strict rules about everything from the kind of vegetables she is permitted to eat to the kind of tubes that must be used for skin creams, so local believers are making sure she receives everything that the detention center permits,” says Representative Foley. “The one thing that she doesn’t have is what we believe she needs the most: letters of encouragement from fellow believers letting her know that she is not forgotten and that people are praying for her.”
Representative Foley says that no trial date has yet been set for Missionary Park on the three immigration-related charges against her, though expectations remain that an initial court appearance in May is likely. The missionary faces a possible total 17 years in prison.
The court dismissed a complaint filed by Missionary Park’s attorney last month regarding the seizure of her home by authorities as part of an investigation. Representative Foley says that Missionary Park’s attorney plans to appeal the dismissal.
Voice of the Martyrs Korea Representative Dr. Hyun Sook Foley and CEO Pastor Eric Foley delivered a 5,000+ signature petition to the Russian Embassy in Seoul last month calling for the missionary’s immediate release. Copies of the petition were also sent to the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. Representative Foley says her organization also received a request for information from the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, which noted that it is monitoring the case.
Ms. Park Tae-Yeon has been living with a sincere love for the country of Russia and its people since she arrived there in 1993.
Park Tae–Yeon is a Korean missionary who was arrested in Khabarovsk, Russia on January 15, one week before she was scheduled to return home to Korea to retire at age 70. Authorities seized Missionary Park’s house in Russia and fined the missionary for overstaying her visa, despite the overstay being due to her detainment by Russian authorities.
An online petition posted by Voice of the Martyrs Korea from February to April garnered more than 4,000 signatures from Korea, along with more than 1,000 signatures from Russia, Ukraine, the United States, Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Brazil, Africa, Finland, Zimbabwe, Poland, Hungary, Indonesia, Romania, Nigeria, Scotland, Hong Kong, and the Philippines.