Kenneth Bae
By Anugrah Kumar
The mother of Kenneth Bae, an imprisoned U.S. Christian sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in North Korea for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government, is in Pyongyang to visit her son, whose health is failing and who has lost a lot of weight.
“I’m very excited but at the same I am also anxious. I don’t know what to expect when I meet my son,” says Bae’s mother, Myunghee of Lynnwood, Wash., in a video statement.
Myunghee arrived Pyongyang last Thursday, and plans to stay there for five days. In the video, she expresses gratitude for the chance to visit her son.
“As a mother, I worry endlessly about his health and I wanna see him and comfort him and hold him in person,” she adds. “I miss him so much…”
The oppressive communist country has accused Bae, a father of three who worked as a tour guide, of “serious crimes” including setting up bases in China with the aim of bringing down the government. His sister, Terri Chung, has said his Christian faith might have been the real reason he was targeted by officials.
“His personal convictions and his beliefs as a Christian may have been deemed as, I don’t know, perhaps hostile acts, but all I know is that he only had the best of intentions to help the people,” Chung said earlier. “Maybe he was a little bit overzealous, I’m not sure… All I know is my brother is a good man. He has a huge heart to help people in the nation of North Korea.”