S. Korea Presses China to Probe Torture Claim

South Korea's foreign minister said Friday he would press China to conduct a thorough investigation into claims that a Seoul rights activist was physically abused while detained by Beijing.

"I will press for a thorough and strict re-investigation because our top priority is to protect our people," Kim Sung-Hwan told a parliamentary foreign affairs committee.

He said Seoul was awaiting a reply from Beijing to an earlier request to investigate the activist's claim he was harshly treated by Chinese security authorities.

Kim Young-Hwan and three other activists trying to help North Korean refugees in China were arrested on March 29 and accused of endangering Beijing's national security. They were deported last week.

The activist has said he was physically abused but declined to give details. His colleagues said he was subjected to electrical shocks during the first month of detention.

"Kim Young-Hwan confirmed that he was tortured with electrical shocks," said ruling party lawmaker Ha Tae-Kyung, who also heads a group called Open Radio for North Korea.

Ha criticized the ministry for taking a cautious attitude to the activist's claim.

China is North Korea's sole major ally and repatriates those North Korean refugees whom it catches, despite protests from rights groups. It is generally hostile to efforts by South Korean activists to help the fugitives.

The activist said he had been collecting information about the lives of the refugees and the state of human rights in their homeland. He suggested China might have acted on tips from North Korean security agents.

Kim Young-Hwan is the former leader of an underground leftist party who met the then-North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung in Pyongyang in 1991. He later became a fierce critic of the regime and now works for a Seoul-based rights group.