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P12:Layout 1 THURSDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2015 INTERNATIONAL North Korea jails Canadian pastor for life SEOUL: A North Korean court has sentenced Church ‘confession’ tion by high-profile US political figures. a Canadian pastor to life imprisonment with In August the North released a video Although religious freedom is enshrined in hard labor, while rejecting a prosecution call showing Lim attending a Sunday service at the North’s constitution, it does not exist in for the death penalty after his conviction on Pyongyang’s Pongsu Church and confess- practice and religious activities are restrict- sedition charges. South Korean-born Hyeon ing to various charges in an address to a ed to officially recognized groups linked to Soo Lim, pastor at the Light Korean small congregation that included a number the government. Presbyterian Church in Toronto, is the latest of foreigners. “I committed the gravest in a series of foreign missionaries to be crime of insulting and defaming the top Suspect foreign missionaries arrested, deported or jailed for allegedly dignity and the leadership of the republic,” Foreign missionaries arrested in North meddling in state affairs. “The defendant Lim Lim said in the video. Korea can find themselves facing punishing admitted all the charges against him includ- Detained foreigners are habitually jail sentences, or used by Pyongyang as ing viciously defaming our system and our required to make public and officially script- leverage to extract concessions or high- supreme dignity as well as plotting to over- ed pronouncements of their guilt in order to profile visits to ensure their release. In throw our state,” the North’s official KCNA help secure their eventual release. “The trial November last year Kenneth Bae-a US citi- news agency said. demonstrated again what kind of miserable zen who, like Lim, was born in South Korea- According to KCNA, the prosecutor had fate awaits people like Lim-the followers of was released two years after being sen- asked the Supreme Court to hand down a the US and South Korean regimes that tenced to 15 years’ hard labour. death sentence, arguing that the pastor’s ceaselessly try to annihilate our socialist sys- Bae, who had been convicted of plotting crimes merited “the sternest punishment.” Lim tem and defame the supreme dignity of our to overthrow the North Korean regime, was was detained by North Korean authorities in sacred republic,” KCNA said. released along with another American PYONGYANG: Hyeon Soo Lim who pastors the Light Korean Presbyterian January after arriving from China. The specific Pyongyang views foreign missionaries detainee as the result of a secret mission to Church in Toronto, is escorted to his sentencing. — AP actions that resulted in the sedition allega- with deep suspicion, though it allows some Pyongyang by US intelligence chief James tions have never been detailed. According to to undertake humanitarian work. A number Clapper. In March last year an elderly gious material in the North’s capital. A ground church. Lim’s sentence was his church in Toronto, he was on a purely of Christian missionaries-mostly ethnic Australian missionary, John Short, was South Korean missionary arrested in the announced just days after high-level talks humanitarian mission and had visited the Koreans who are US citizens-have been deported after being held for 13 days. North in October 2013, Kim Jeong-Wook, is between the two Koreas aimed at improv- North on numerous occasions to support arrested in the past, with some of them Short signed a detailed “confession” and currently serving hard labor for life for ing cross-border ties broke up in mutual work with orphanages and nursing homes. only allowed to return home after interven- apology after his arrest for distributing reli- allegedly spying and operating an under- recrimination. — AFP Freedom of speech reaches new low in junta Thailand BANGKOK: Thailand’s military seized power defended the royal insult law. “We haven’t used last year with a promise to eventually restore this law in a harsher manner but in this period democracy. But a crackdown against critics of there may have been more people who violat- the monarchy and junta suggest the country is ed this law so authorities have to deal with locked on a darker trajectory, say UN officials them accordingly,” Winthai told Reuters. “We and human rights activists. need this law in Thailand in order to protect On Sunday, a student was taken from hos- the monarchy which is the love of all Thais,” he pital by plainclothes agents and charged with said. defaming Thailand’s widely revered royalty. On All this comes amid worries over the health Monday, it emerged that a factory worker was of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who turned 88 charged with sedition and mocking King this month, and concerns over an eventual suc- Bhumibol Adulyadej’s dog. If found guilty, he cession - a subject that cannot be openly dis- faces decades in prison. And on Tuesday, a mili- cussed because of the lese-majeste law that tary court sentenced a single mother to seven makes it a crime to defame, insult or threaten years in jail for posting material on the Internet the king, queen or heir apparent, but one that insulting to the monarchy. continues to dominate political developments Human Rights Watch said the cases under- in Thailand. score how freedom of speech has reached a The king’s son and heir, Crown Prince Maha new low in the Southeast Asian country. Since Vajiralongkorn, does not command the same taking power in 2014, the military has made level of devotion as his father. Diplomats and full use of Article 44 of the interim constitution foreign journalists have also been caught up in which gives junta leader Prayuth Chan-ocha the military crackdown on anyone perceived as absolute power to give any order deemed nec- critical of the junta or royal establishment. essary to prevent acts seen as undermining On Tuesday, the Thai printer blocked publi- national security. It also allows soldiers to cation of a report in the International New York detain people for up to seven days without a Times on the king’s dog defamation charges, court warrant. the third time in a month that it has left a Rights groups and critics of the junta say a Thailand article blank, and the US Ambassador MANILA: A woman walks through floodwaters in suburban Manila yesterday. — AFP draconian law designed to protect Thailand’s to the country is being investigated over accu- royal family has been broadened considerably sations he violated the strict lese-majeste law. and is being applied with greater fervor. “The “The UN High Commissioner has stated he Philippine typhoon death toll travesty of law enforcement under the junta’s is appalled by the shockingly disproportionate rule reached a new low when Thanakorn was prison terms handed down this year in lese- charged with lese-majeste for ... comments majeste cases in Thailand,” the Office of the climbs as rescuers struggle that Thai authorities considered as mocking United Nations High Commissioner for Human the king’s dog,” Sunai Phasuk of Human Rights Rights told Reuters in an e-mail. The office said Watch told Reuters, referring to factory worker prison terms handed down for lese-majeste Widespread flooding cuts power for millions Thanakorn Siripaiboon, 27. this year were the heaviest recorded since 2006, when it began documenting cases of MANILA: Rescuers on speedboats hauled rain- in the day when floods subsided to knee-deep. islands known for its marble reserves, reported Major worries individuals prosecuted for lese-majeste soaked residents off rooftops in the Philippine six deaths. Junta spokesman Colonel Winthai Suvaree offences. — Reuters countryside yesterday after Typhoon Melor killed Disaster repeat The national disaster council also reported at least 11 people and cut power for millions. The However in the northern provinces of Nueva one more death due to drowning on Samar, an typhoon tore in off the Pacific Ocean on Monday Ecija and Bulacan, floodwaters rose swiftly yes- impoverished island of 1.5 million people in the afternoon and caused widespread flooding terday as water from mountain regions inundat- eastern Philippines where Melor first made land- Sydney hit by severe storm across the northern and central regions of the ed by Melor overnight cascaded down, causing fall. Five people have now been confirmed killed island nation and dumped heavy rain on the rivers and streams to swell. The same areas were on Samar. Millions of people were also without SYDNEY: Australia’s biggest city Sydney was house which have landed in my front yard. It’s sprawling capital of Manila. flooded in October by Typhoon Koppu, which power in the eastern Philippines and the central smashed by a tornado-like storm yesterday, just a mess.” The weather bureau said warn- Head-high floods in the central islands began left 54 people killed and destroyed vast swathes islands, with no guarantees electricity would be with hail as big as golf balls and winds gusting ings for destructive winds, large hail stones to subside yesterday, but parts of the rice-grow- of rice farms. restored before Christmas. And 226,000 people at 200 kilometers an hour causing havoc. Two and heavy rain were in place for central ing north were inundated with one-meter (three- Office supplies salesman Sem Sangoyo remained in storm shelters, the national disaster people required treatment-one for shock and Sydney, its airport and the Sydney Harbor feet) deep waters as torrents from mountain watched helplessly as pens and papers in his council said. one for a head wound-in the hardest-hit sub- Bridge. “Very destructive winds associated provinces cascaded downstream. Residents office supplies store in Cabanatuan, the capital of Melor’s gusts weakened to 130 kilometers per urb of Kurnell, an ambulance official said.
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