Jeffrey E. Fowle | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1958 (age 65–66) Miamisburg, Ohio, U.S. |
| Occupation | Municipal worker |
| Known for | Arrest and detention in North Korea |
| Detainment | |
| Country |  North Korea |
| Detained | May 4, 2014 |
| Released | October 21, 2014 |
| Days in detention | 170 |
| Reason for detention | Proselytism [1] |
Jeffrey Edward Fowle (born 1958) [2] is an American citizen who was arrested during a vacation in North Korea in May 2014 for leaving a Bible in a club in the northern port city of Chongjin. [3]
Fowle is from Miamisburg, Ohio, and worked in the Moraine, Ohio [4] municipal street department. [3] His wife, Tatyana, was born in Russia, and they have three children. [3]
In May 2014, while on a guided tour of North Korea, Fowle deliberately left a Korean-English bible in the restroom of the Chongjin Sailor's Club. [5] Religious proselytism is a crime in North Korea. [1] The bible was discovered by a staff member and handed in to local authorities. Fowle was arrested at Pyongyang International Airport as his tour group was preparing to leave the country. [2] At the time, Fowle was one of three U.S. citizens detained in North Korea, the others being Kenneth Bae and Matthew Todd Miller. They were individually granted interviews with two U.S. news outlets, CNN and Associated Press, pleading for assistance from the U.S. government. [6]
On October 21, 2014, Fowle was released and flown out of North Korea on a U.S. government jet. [1] Sweden facilitated Fowle's release in its capacity as the United States' protecting power in North Korea, as the United States and North Korea did not have formal diplomatic relations. [1]
Chŏngjin is the capital of North Korea's North Hamgyong Province (함경북도) and the country's third-largest city. It is sometimes called The City of Iron.
The human rights record of North Korea has been condemned, with the United Nations and groups such as Human Rights Watch all critical of it. Amnesty International considers North Korea to have no contemporary parallel with respect to violations of liberty.
Tourism in North Korea is tightly controlled by the North Korean government. All tourism is organized by one of several state-owned tourism bureaus, including Korea International Travel Company (KITC), Korean International Sports Travel Company (KISTC), Korean International Taekwondo Tourism Company (KITTC) and Korean International Youth Travel Company (KIYTC). The majority of tourists are Chinese nationals: one 2019 estimate indicated that up to 120,000 Chinese tourists had visited North Korea in the previous year, compared to fewer than 5,000 from Western countries.
Canada–South Korea relations are foreign relations between Canada and the Republic of Korea. Canadian soldiers participated in the defense of South Korea during the Korean War. Full diplomatic relations between Canada and South Korea were established on January 14, 1963. Canada has an embassy in Seoul, and a consulate in Busan. South Korea has an embassy in Ottawa and three Consulates-General, in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. Both nations are full members of APEC, OECD and the G20.
On March 17, 2009, North Korean soldiers detained two American journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, who were working for the U.S.-based independent television station Current TV, after they crossed into North Korea from China without a visa. They were found guilty of illegal entry and sentenced to twelve years' hard labor in June 2009. The North Korean leader Kim Jong Il pardoned the two on August 5, 2009, the day after the former U.S. president Bill Clinton arrived in the country on a publicly unannounced visit.
On July 31, 2009, three Americans, Joshua Fattal, Sarah Shourd and Shane Bauer were taken into custody by Iranian border guards for crossing into Iran while hiking near the Iranian border in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Aijalon Mahli Gomes was an American teacher who was detained in North Korea for illegally entering the country via China on January 25, 2010. On August 27, 2010, it was announced that former U.S. president Jimmy Carter had secured Gomes's release. In May 2015, Gomes published an autobiography, Violence and Humanity. In November 2017, he was found burned to death in what was ruled a suicide.
Son Jong-nam was a North Korean defector and Christian missionary, who died in a Pyongyang prison after being arrested in 2006.
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea is a 2009 nonfiction book by Los Angeles Times journalist Barbara Demick, based on interviews with North Korean refugees from the city of Chongjin who had escaped North Korea. In 2010, the book was awarded the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. It was also a nonfiction finalist for the National Book Award in 2010.
Kenneth Bae is a South Korean-born American Evangelical Christian missionary. Convicted by North Korea on charges of planning to overthrow the government, he was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment in April 2013. Bae was released on November 8, 2014, along with fellow American Matthew Todd Miller.
Crime is present in various forms in North Korea, officially known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).
Merrill Edward Newman was a businessman and former United States Army officer. In 2013, he was arrested in North Korea and released 42 days later.
The Dai Hong Dan incident took place on 29 October 2007, when the North Korean cargo vessel MV Dai Hong Dan (대홍단호) was attacked and temporarily seized by Somali pirates off Somalia. The following day, the crew of the vessel overpowered the pirates with the support of a US naval vessel.
Matthew Todd Miller is an American citizen who was detained in North Korea (DPRK). He had travelled to North Korea intending to get arrested. He was sentenced to six years of hard labor on September 14, 2014, for committing "acts hostile to the DPRK while entering under the guise of a tourist." He was released, along with Kenneth Bae, on November 8, 2014.
The following lists events that happened in 2014 in North Korea.
Kim Dong Chul is a Korean-American businessman who was imprisoned by the government of North Korea (DPRK) in October 2015 and sentenced to 10 years of hard labor for alleged espionage. Kim was one of three U.S. citizens imprisoned in that country to be released on May 9, 2018. The others were Tony Kim, also known as Kim Sang-duk, and Kim Hak-song.
Otto Frederick Warmbier was an American college student who was imprisoned in North Korea in 2016 on a charge of subversion. In June 2017, he was released by North Korea in a vegetative state and died soon after his parents requested his feeding tube be removed.
Nizar Zakka is a Lebanese national who was arrested by Iran in 2015, and was imprisoned until 2019 on charges of espionage for the United States. Zakka worked as an Internet freedom advocate and served as secretary general of the Arab Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Organization (IJMA3) in Washington, D.C., and is a US permanent resident.
The persecution of Christians in North Korea is an ongoing and systematic human rights violation in North Korea. According to multiple resolutions which have been passed by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, the North Korean government considers religious activities political crimes, because they could challenge the personality cult of Kim Il Sung and his family. The Workers' Party of Korea also considers religion a tool of American imperialism and the North Korean state uses this argument to justify its activities.