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Ham wrote under the pen name Choi Song-min for North Korea-focused outlets Daily NK and Gukmin Tongil Bangsong. In May 2017 he traveled to China on an assignment. Witnesses say he got into a taxi driven by an ethnic Korean Chinese driver, headed toward the China–North Korea border, and then lost contact. South Korean officials say the North’s State Security Department is believed to have been involved.
On the 11th, Ham’s wife told this paper by phone that she learned early on her husband had been held in a subterranean cell operated by Pyongyang’s State Security Department, and that since then she has been unable to confirm whether he is alive. “We have had no way to verify his condition or secure his return,” she said, adding that the family feels powerless. She said she was shocked when President Lee Jae-myung told foreign reporters he was unaware of South Koreans detained in North Korea, but expressed gratitude that the Ministry of Unification has now formally listed her husband as detained. She also said the government had not informed her of that classification directly.
In 2018, then-Bareunmirae Party lawmaker Ha Tae-kyung, along with Ham’s wife, argued that the number of South Korean nationals detained in North Korea was seven — not six — and urged the government to press Pyongyang for Ham’s return. The government did not formally accept that position until last year.
The ministry said it classified Ham as detained after the National Assembly formed a task force on releases and submitted a petition following the northbound abduction, and after the U.S. State Department’s human rights report on North Korea listed the individual as detained. The ministry added that, following consultations with relevant agencies, the government has broadly recognized victims of the national division and acknowledged him as detained to strengthen efforts to resolve detainee cases.
The ministry said it updated the “Detainees” section of its website at the end of last December, changing the count of South Koreans detained in North Korea from six to seven. Last December, Unification Minister Jeong Dong-young told reporters the number was seven, not six, and the ministry said the website update was a follow-up to that statement.
The ministry said that if a detainee’s family residing in South Korea applies for a “victim consolation payment,” the Compensation Review Committee will review the application and authorize payment. Since November 2023, the ministry has recognized detainees’ families as abduction victims under the Act on Compensation and Support for Abduction Victims after the Armistice Agreement and has paid consolation funds.
