Asylum-seeking defector receives new Seoul passport

Ma Young-ae shows off her new passport in Los Angeles on Wednesday.[YONHAP]

A North Korean defector received a South Korean passport five years after seeking asylum in the United States, citing political persecution in South Korea.

Ma Young-ae told Yonhap News Agency that she received the 10-year electronic passport at the South Korean consulate general in Los Angeles Wednesday.

“I filed an application for the passport with the consulate general in January and went to the consulate to receive the passport on the 3rd [of this month],” she said.

The 53-year-old former member of an artistic troupe in North Korea defected to South Korea in 2000, but later sought political asylum in the U.S., where she visited in 2004 as a member of a performance troupe.

Ma said that at the time she had been persecuted by the Roh Moo-hyun government for her speeches denouncing North Korea’s human rights conditions.

The liberal Roh administration actively sought rapprochement with the North, and according to many observers suppressed domestic criticism of Pyongyang for fear of provoking the communist neighbor.

With the launch of the conservative Lee Myung-bak government early last year, South Korea’s policy toward Pyongyang took a pronounced turn as Lee demanded the North take steps to dismantle its nuclear program in return for Seoul’s aid. The North promptly cut all ties with the South.

Ma said she filed for the passport in hopes the Lee government would approve her application.

“I wrote a letter to President Lee Myung-bak and National Intelligence Director Kim Sung-ho in December to explain what I had experienced and to ask for recovery of my honor through the issuance of the passport,” she said. Yonhap