Pyongyang shows video of parents of defector

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Pyongyang shows video of parents of defector

North Korea claimed again Thursday that the defectors who worked at a state-run restaurant in China were kidnapped.

It released video in which one of the parents of a defector calling for their daughter’s repatriation.

In the nearly seven minute video clip, posted on the North’s propaganda outlet Uriminzokkiri, the parents of So Gyong-A, one of the waitresses who defected to South Korea earlier this month, urged Seoul to return their loved daughter to home.

Earlier this month, South Korea announced a “mass defection” of a male manager and 12 female employees of the Ryugyong restaurant in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province. Local reports revealed that the group moved to Shanghai by land and flew to a country in Southeast Asia, where they took a plane bound for South Korea.

“When we heard our daughter was abducted to the South, we couldn’t escape from our deep grief,” said the mother tearfully.

“I’ve taken out and looked at pictures of my daughter again and again,” the father said. “I believe my daughter, who was raised in this beloved country, is not the kind of person to betray and abandoned her country.”

Both parents lashed out at President Park Geun-hye, calling her a “devil.”

The video was titled “Interview with families of kidnapped women” and bore the number one, suggesting the North will release more video interviews of other defectors’ parents.

A week after the defections were announced, North Korea released a statement urging South Korea to return the 13 employees, arguing that an unprecedented group “abduction” had been committed by “gangsters of the puppet intelligence service,” referring to South Korea’s intelligence agency.

Last week, CNN aired interviews with seven waitresses from the same restaurant who claimed their former compatriots would never defect and must have been tricked. One of the former waitresses at the Ryugyong restaurantsaid the defection was planned by the “bastard” manager.

The Ministry of Unification has repeatedly said the defectors came to the South of their own free will.

BY KIM SO-HEE [kim.sohee0905@joongang.co.kr]
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