At least that is how the FreeRobertPark website is declaring his stay at a mental hospital in Long Beach, California. According to the site:
Robert Park, as a result of suffering torture in the DPRK “North Korea” is currently being held against his will at Community hospital of Long Beach in California, United States.
He was drugged and taken by force into the mental hospital and has been classified Gravely Disabled, “unable to provide for your own food, clothing, and shelter.” He has been there since Feb 27, 2010. He requests all people worldwide to demonstrate, protest, and take urgent, radical, united action to liberate all North Koreans in North Korea and in China immediately. He also requests all money withdrawn from Kim Jung Il regime and redirected to the refugees and North Korean refugee led organizations.
Norbert Vollertsen noted that Robert Park had missed a press conference in Washington D.C. on February 25. Perhaps it had something to do with his last email.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
He sounds like he needs some psychiatric help. (even before he went off to North Korea)
My question is, why is Norbert Vollertsen on the outside looking in…the dumbass tried to dash across the MDL at Panmunjom back in 2001 and put the lives of all his fellow tourists and the guards on duty at the time at risk. And, just like Park, to make a point, that no one who could care nor benefit from would ever have a chance of hearing. He should be committed at same said mental institution…
#1,
Yes, another nutter fundamentalist who is convinced his is the only way to ‘free’ the DPRK. While I applaud his spirit in doing so, and his bravery, I think he does more harm than good. OTOH, has he/his organization rescued North Koreans and got them to South Korea? If so, he’s done more for positive change than many.
It’s tempting to connect the dots – the impulse that drove him across the border and the mental hospital – and declare him nuts. But there’s not enough information to be sure. I’d like him to be a hero, but I’m guessing his family had him committed because they found him curled up on his bedroom floor muttering in Serbo-Croat…
@4 I don’t think it was necessary to “connect the dots” on this one. In an earlier post I linked to an extended 4-part video interview with the man just before he decided to cross over.
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2010/02/26/the-first-direct-email-from-robert-park/#comment-363774
Those video interviews have since been pulled from Youtube and it’s not surprising as they give some strong indicators of a man in need of help.
http://video.christianpost.com/20091230/part-1-robert-park-interview-to-kim-jong-il/
I still am of the opinion that those around him — Pax Koreana, the Palomar Korean Church in the San Diego, his Christian contacts in Korea and China, even the journalists — should have done a better job of trying to prevent him from going through with it. People seemed too ready to say, as one preacher did, that “Robert is doing what God has called him to do.”
What do you do when someone tells you “now I’m walking to my death” (which Park repeatedly made clear he was doing) — just pick up the camera and film it?
Apparently that’s just what the two North Korean defectors who helped him cross over did. News reports said that afterward “that one of the defectors who videotaped it was demanding money to hand over the film.” http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,581166,00.html
Ben, thanks for the info… perhaps it is just me, but all the videos seem to be private?
It’s God’s will.
Yes, the videos were just recently been made “private.” They were all viewable a week ago.
The Chosun Ilbo is now reporting that Park may have been “sexually abused/tortured by North Korean Authorities.”
“로버트 박, 北서 性고문 당해”
http://news.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2010/03/06/2010030600121.html
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