Endangered Christians

Lee Jee-young, 32, wrote a note to her parents which was passed on by the two female hostages freed earlier this month. She told her parents that she was faring well, healthy, eating well, and wasn’t sick.

‘There is officially no deal reached yet,’ state news agency Yonhap and KBS radio quoted a senior official with the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade as saying.

A foreign ministry spokesman meanwhile said press reports of an agreement could not be confirmed, but added that contact with the kidnappers was being maintained and all efforts were being made to secure the release of the 19.

KBS had earlier quoted Afghan press reports saying Taliban and South Korean negotiators had reached agreement via Saudi Arabian mediation, and that an official announcement to that effect was to be made Sunday.

Reports said the terms of the agreement included a commitment by South Korea to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan within weeks, as well as for all South Korean aid workers to leave the country.

The announcement followed the resumption of negotiations which had been on hold for two weeks after the Korean side said it was unable to meet the kidnappers’ chief demand to release Taliban prisoners held by the Afghan government in exchange for the hostages, most of them women.

“The Taliban agreed to free the 19 South Korean hostages on the condition that South Korea withdraws its troops within this year and halt missionary activities,” the Blue House statement said.

The government had in any case decided before the hostage crisis to pull out its small contingent of engineers and medical staff from Afghanistan by the end of the year.

And since the hostages were taken it has banned its nationals from traveling to the war-torn country.

Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan will on Wednesday start releasing 19 South Korean Christian volunteers kidnapped nearly six weeks ago, a representative of the group said.

“Our decision is today,” said Qari Mohammad Bashir who was also involved in the talks with a Korean team on the release of the hostages. “We are trying to start the work today.”

The charge is failing to comply with a mandatory registration requirement. The church flock in Khalkabad near Pap in the eastern Namangan Region of Uzbekistan was harassed four years ago for not registering its activities with authorities.

Uzbekistan is in Central Asia, north of Afghanistan.

Local Baptists told Forum 18 News Service that police raided Sunday services on July 29 and August 5. Following the raids, church member Nikolai Zulfikarov – who hosts services in his home – could face criminal trial with a possible sentence of up to five years imprisonment.

Baptists told Forum 18 that an investigation was initiated against Zulfikarov under Article 216 of the Criminal Code, which punishes so-called “illegal organization of a social or religious organization.”

Charges are also reportedly being prepared against others present at the services, as well as Baptists from the city of Fergana who traveled to Pap to try and find out what is going on.

“The authorities wanted to sentence Nikolai Zulfikarov immediately, but after church members complained the process stopped,” one Baptist speaking on condition of anonymity told Forum 18. “There’s now total silence, but it is not clear if this means they will abandon the attempt or if they are moving stealthily behind the scenes.”

According to Forum 18, the head of the Pap District Criminal Investigation Department, Abdumalik Motboev, is leading the investigation into Zulfikarov and four other church members. An official who answered Motboev’s telephone and declined to give his name, confirmed to Forum 18 that a criminal case has been launched against Zulfikarov. However, the official said he did not know the details of the case.

Three South Korean women were released first, and later five — four women and a man — handed over to members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Ghazni province, Reuters witnesses said.

Wearing long, traditional headscarves, the three women who were first to be freed wept as they sat in an ICRC vehicle.

Taliban representative Qari Mohammad Bashir, who was involved in the negotiations that led to the agreement to free the Koreans, told the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press news agency he hoped all would be free in two or three days.

However, South Korea had already decided before the crisis to withdraw its contingent of about 200 engineers and medical staff from Afghanistan by the end of 2007. Since the hostages were taken it has banned its nationals from traveling there.

A spokesman for South Korea’s president, Chon Ho-seon, did not respond to questions at a news briefing in Seoul on Wednesday on whether a ransom was part of the deal but said South Korea had done what was needed.

“We believe it is any country’s responsibility to respond with flexibility to save lives as long as you don’t depart too far from the principles and practice of the international community,” Chon said.

[…]

A Taliban spokesman, Qari Mohammad Yousuf, said by telephone he expected all of the hostages to be free by Thursday.

Afghan officials said that troops had sealed off an area of the southern province of Ghazni, where they believe the hostages are being held. The Koreans were seized from a bus on the main Kabul to Kandahar highway last Thursday in the largest single abduction of foreigners since 2001.

The Islamic militants gave a list of eight jailed rebels to the government whom it wants released, and said it would free the same number of the Korean Christian aid workers in exchange.

The Taliban had complained the Afghan government had failed to release any Taliban prisoners as the kidnappers had demanded and as, according to the rebel spokesman, Korean negotiators had assured them Kabul would do.

Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf said the deadline had been set by the Taliban leadership council, headed by elusive leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, giving the threat added weight.

The kidnappers killed the leader of the Korean group on Wednesday, but several further deadlines have passed without the rebels carrying out their threat to kill the remaining hostages.

The offer came as spokesman for the kidnappers said they were optimistic about talks aimed at releasing the group of Christian aid workers captured on the main highway between Kabul and Kandahar more than three weeks ago.

Kabul has steadfastly rejected previous offers of a prisoner swap with the Al-Qaeda-backed insurgents and its position was reiterated by President Hamid Karzai’s office Saturday.

Reuters witnesses said the two women arrived in the village of Arzoo, near the city of Ghazni, in a saloon car driven by two tribal elders.

“We saw them getting into a Red Crescent vehicle,” one of the witnesses said. “They were able to walk and appeared to be well, but they were very emotional and were crying.”

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that two Korean women were freed.

A Taliban spokesman said the decision to free the pair had been made by the Taliban leadership council, headed by Mullah Mohammad Omar, as a gesture of goodwill towards the Korean people and South Korean diplomats negotiating for the hostages’ release.

The pair are the first of the hostages to be released by the Taliban kidnappers since the group of 23 Korean church volunteers were abducted from a bus in Ghazni province on the main road south from the capital Kabul more than three weeks ago.

The kidnappers accused Korean hostage negotiators of not doing enough to persuade the Afghan government to accept their demands to release Taliban prisoners.

“The Korean nation must understand that if their hostages are harmed their government will be responsible, because it doesn’t do much to gain their release,” a purported Taliban statement said.

“Their efforts are not sufficient,” according to the statement, read over the telephone to AFP by a Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahed.

[…]

“Our negotiating team were in telephone contact with the South Korean delegation today (Monday). The Koreans are asking for more time,” he said.

“The Koreans are telling us that ‘we’re trying to persuade the Kabul administration and the US government to accept the Taliban demands’ — but it seems they can’t,” he added.

Citing an informed source speaking on condition of anonymity, Yonhap said one male and two female hostages went on hunger strike from Sunday morning.

The hostages are reported to have been split into as many as five groups and are being detained at different locations in Ghazni province in central Afghanistan, where they were taken hostage on July 19.