A huge North Korean flag flutters at a village in North Korea in this photo taken on July 19, 2022, near the South Korean side of the truce village of Panmunjom inside the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas. The National Human Rights Commission of Korea has urged North Korea to release six South Korean citizens held against their will by the regime, it said Friday. Reuters-Yonhap

The National Human Rights Commission of Korea has urged North Korea to release six South Korean citizens held against their will by the regime, it said on Friday.

According to the commission, its representative, Lee Han-byeol, attended the Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review (UPR) meeting held Thursday in Geneva, where she called on the North to release Christian missionaries ― Kim Jung-wook, Kim Kook-kie and Choi Chun-gil ― as well as three North Korean defectors.

"At the UPR meeting, we emphasized the need for the immediate repatriation of six of our citizens detained in North Korea, the need to inform North Korean defectors in South Korea of the whereabouts of their families in the North, the need for the immediate repatriation of prisoners of war and the need to hold a reunification event for separated families," the commission said.

North Korea has long been a merciless land for Christian missionaries over the decades. But for South Korean believers, it has been even more so.

In 2013, Kim Jung-wook was arrested there and sentenced to hard labor for life on charges of spying for South Korea's intelligence agency. The following year, Kim Kook-kie and Choi were also detained on similar charges.

Two years later, three people who defected from the regime, who had obtained citizenship in South Korea, were held captive.

The commission said it will continue to work with human rights activists across the world for the freedom of the South Korean captives and raise awareness of rights abuses in the North.