North Korea has detained another U.S. citizen

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un
(Image credit: Stringer/Getty Images)

North Korea reportedly detained a U.S. citizen named Kim Hak Song on Saturday on suspicion of "hostile acts" against Pyongyang. Now, a "relevant institution" in the totalitarian government is "conducting [a] detailed investigation," state media reported.

Kim is the fourth American currently held by North Korea; a Korean-American man named Tony Kim was detained on Friday, April 21, and two other detainees were arrested in 2016 and sentenced to hard labor.

Both men arrested this year taught at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST), a Christian school typically attended by the children of North Korea's elite. Kim Hak Song reportedly described himself as a Christian missionary who wanted to start a farming experiment at PUST to improve North Korean agriculture.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.