“Missionary Park is doing well, considering that she has been in detention since January and her trial was originally supposed to start in April, got delayed until August, and has faced several other recent delays,” says Voice of the Martyrs Korea Representative Dr. Hyun Sook Foley. “As you can imagine, she is tired of staying in one place, but she looks good and tells visitors that she feels well too.”  

Voice of the Martyrs Korea has been advocating for Missionary Park since her arrest in Khabarovsk, Russia on January 15, one week before she was scheduled to return home to Korea to retire at age 70.  

Representative Foley says that the three charges against Missionary Park are all immigration-related and deal with assistance Missionary Park allegedly provided to Koreans to enter Russia. Two of the charges carry maximum 5-year sentences, and the third carries a maximum 7-year sentence, leading to a possible maximum 17-year sentence between the three charges. Representative Foley says although the charges are explicitly immigration-related, Voice of the Martyrs Korea remains concerned that the motivation for the charges is religious.  

“Voice of the Martyrs Korea obtained copies of a notification sent out in January by the Khabarovsk Department of Education to educational and other childcare institutions in the area. The notification says in part, ‘In the capital of the region, a citizen of South Korea, an agent of an American organization Park Tae Yeon’s Child Evangelism Fellowship set up a brainwashing machine for children, instilling values alien to our society and drawing them into the practice of the Korean American form of Protestantism.’ The statement continues: ‘Russian children were set against the family and the state, and Park Tae Yeon herself was presented to them as the main life guide. The camp was carefully conspiratorial.’ The notification concludes: ‘Park Tae Yeon intended to take Russian children to South Korea for final zombification, but did not have time. Now Park Tae Yeon has been detained, and a criminal case has been opened for organizing illegal migration.’” 

Representative Foley says that similar reports appeared in state-affiliated Russian media in late January. “The criminal charges and media campaign against Missionary Park reflect the continued decline in religious freedom across the Russian Federation, particularly as it relates to Protestant Evangelicals,” says Representative Foley. She notes the designation this year by Russia of Child Evangelism Fellowship and fellow mission agency, Mission Eurasia, as “undesirable organizations”, effectively criminalizing any association of Russian citizens with these groups. 

“The 2025 US Commission on International Religious Freedom report on Russia says, ‘Russia criminalizes the activities of several peaceful religious groups by designating them as “terrorist,” “extremist,” or “undesirable,” despite no evidence of their promotion of or participation in violence.’ That’s exactly what we see in the case of Missionary Park. Her activity hasn’t changed for more than 30 years, The only thing that has changed is that now Russian authorities calls people like her ‘extremists’, ‘brainwashers’, and ‘conspirators against Russia’, despite all common-sense evidence to the contrary.” 

Since 2021, the United States has designated Russia as one of 12 ‘Countries of Particular Concern’ for religious freedom violations, along with countries including China, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, and Cuba.