The youth pastor who was leading the group of 22 South Korean aid volunteers in Afghanistan was killed for refusing to convert to Islam, the head pastor of the church revealed after the final 19 former hostages arrived home.
“Among the 19 hostages who returned on the second (of September), some were asked by the Taliban to convert and when they rejected, they were assaulted and severely beaten,” reported Park Eun-jo, pastor of hostages’ home church – Saemmul Presbyterian Church in Bundang, just south of the South Korean capital Seoul.
“I heard from the hostages that they were threatened with death,” he added, according to the Seoul-based Christian Today newspaper. “Especially it is known that the reason Pastor Bae Hyung-kyu was murdered was because he refused the Taliban’s demand to convert.”
A hospital chief also said on Monday that some of the 5 South Korean men freed from captivity last week reported being beaten by their Taliban abductors for refusing to convert to Islam and for protecting their female colleagues.
“We found through medical checks that some male hostages were beaten,” Cha Seung-gyun told reporters, according to Agence France-Presse.
“They said they were beaten at first for refusing to take part in Islamic prayers or for rejecting a demand to convert.”
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