A freed South Korean hostage, right, meeting family members at a hospital in Anyang, southwest of Seoul, on Sunday. (Han Jae-Ho/Reuters)
19 South Koreans return home after Taliban captivity
SEOUL: Nineteen South Korean Christians freed by Taliban insurgents after six weeks arrived here Sunday, carrying the portraits of two fellow church volunteers executed by their kidnappers and apologizing for putting their country through a wrenching, highly divisive hostage drama.
They face a nation relieved that the hostage ordeal is finally over, but also increasingly angry at their decision to travel to Afghanistan despite government warnings, and at what many here consider overzealous proselytizing by South Korean churches.
"We owe a big debt to the nation and people," Yoo Kyung Shik, who at 55 was the oldest of the freed hostages, said at Incheon airport outside Seoul, reading a prepared statement addressed to the South Korean people.
While the other freed hostages stood behind him, many glancing downward and fighting back tears, Yoo likened his group's contrition to "seok go dae zoe," an ancient Korean practice in which criminals were forced to kneel down in public until the king punished or pardoned them.
As Yoo read the statement before a phalanx of journalists, a few sign-carrying Christian fundamentalists shouted: "Brothers and sisters, you did nothing wrong. Keep your chin up."
One man was reportedly stopped by the police as he attempted to hurl eggs at the church volunteers, most of whom looked pale and haggard after their ordeal.
The group was then whisked to a hospital south of Seoul, where they embraced their loved ones in tears and joy. After Kim Yoon Young, 35, kissed her 6-year-old son, he promised to give his mother a "good massage."
Until now, criticism of the church volunteers had been tempered by fears that highlighting the evangelical nature of their mission might threaten their lives. Now that they are free, a backlash is building, with people demanding an accounting of who is to blame for the crisis some feel damaged South Korea's reputation.
"I expect cannonballs of criticism flying at churches for causing such a disturbance, for squandering national energy and money," said the Reverend Kim Myung Hyuk, president of the Korea Evangelical Fellowship. "This is a good opportunity for Christian-bashing in a society that has been frowning upon churches."
The criticism of the hostages, and of missionary work in Islamic countries, has been especially vitriolic on the Internet.
"Do they know what a tremendous humiliation and damage to our national credibility we suffered, as well as a monetary cost, just because they went to a place where they should not have gone?" said one posting Sunday on Naver.com, the largest Web portal in South Korea.
Newspaper editorial pages have also expressed the feeling that the entire country has been, in a sense, held hostage since Taliban insurgents kidnapped 23 South Koreans on July 19.
South Korea was bombarded for weeks by frightening news media reports about repeated Taliban promises to kill all of the hostages, and about the eventual execution of the two male ones. Two other hostages were released Aug. 13.
Critics seem especially outraged that their government was put in what they called a no-win situation, forced to enter talks with a terrorist group despite international criticism. Debate on that issue is likely to intensify now that the Taliban are alleging that Seoul paid them more than $20 million, which they said would be used for more suicide attacks, according to a Reuters news report.
The South Korean government has denied any such a deal.
"How much national resources have been spent on these 23 crazy people?" said one typical posting on the popular Internet site dcinside.com. "Proselytizing in an Islamic country? They prayed for their own death. I wonder why the government negotiated for their sake to begin with."
And Shin Yong Gug, secretary general of the People's Association of Religion Critics, said, "Most consider this a man-made disaster sown by Korean churches' indiscriminate zeal to proselytize and their disregard for safety."
South Korea, which is about 30 percent Christian, has become the second-largest exporter of missionaries after the United States, with almost 17,000 in 170 countries.
Although questions about missionary work in Muslim countries have been especially pronounced since the hostages were released, questions about South Korean churches' zeal to spread their faith in such places have been quietly growing in recent years. Critics have worried that attempts to spread Christianity in Muslim countries show disrespect, intentional or unintentional, for the local culture.
Both Saemmul Presbyterian Church, to which the hostages belong, and the government insisted that the hostages had not been proselytizing, just providing aid. But many religious experts here consider such a distinction meaningless, since South Korean churches provide aid to gain converts. Saemmul Church once called the trip a "short-term evangelical mission."
Taliban riding in a truck in Herat, Afghanistan.Nineteen South Korean Christians are released from  after being held captive for six weeks. The 19 South Koreans return to a nation that is glad the  situation has been resolved and is over. However, they also face a country that is angry with their decision to travel to Afghanistan despite the Afghan government advising them not to.



One South Korean man was reportedly stopped by the police when he attempted to hurl eggs at the freed Christians. The South Korean people are demanding to know who is to blame for the crisis and damaging South Korea's reputation. 



The South Korean government promised to send no more Christian  into the country.