Kenneth Bae, a United States citizen was arrested and detained over 7 months ago in November 2012 by North Korea for crimes neither proven nor accepted by the United States or any international standard of justice.
We call for our government to refuse to enter into normalized relations with any country that would arrest one of our citizens for exercising a fundamental right of all Americans and all human beings, the freedom of religion.
We call for our government to exert all diplomatic, economic, and God forbid military means to secure the release of Kenneth Bae.
On this Fourth of July as we celebrate our hard fought independence we as a nation should be ever vigilant against forces that would seek to compromise our freedom by holding one of our citizens hostage for diplomatic gain.