Pastor’s Release Reveals Alarming Threat to Religious Freedom in South Korea

On January 30, 2026 Pastor Hyun-bo Son was finally released from detention after being jailed on September 8, 2025 on charges the government calls “electioneering.” The Busan court handed him a six-month sentence suspended with one year of probation, but the bigger story is not the technical verdict — it is the chilling precedent this government-backed prosecution sets for every preacher, pastor, and citizen who dares to speak about conscience and public policy.

Prosecutors accused Pastor Son of using church services, a microphone, and even a brief interview with a local candidate to influence voters, and the court said his intent was clear. Those facts are being used as a cudgel: inviting a candidate onto a pulpit to answer questions about education policy and praying at a campaign office have been reframed as criminal acts in an astonishing expansion of election law.

Son has described cramped conditions behind bars — an 80-centimeter cell and poor meals — and his family says they were kept at arm’s length while the state made an example of him. That treatment should send a shiver down the spine of every American who believes in religious liberty; this is not mere law enforcement, it is political theater aimed at silencing moral voices.

Across South Korea conservative politicians and ordinary churchgoers cried foul, calling the arrest religious suppression, and Pastor Son’s son, Chance, appealed to the United States and international allies for help. Thousands of U.S. pastors reportedly signed petitions, and Son’s release after months of pressure shows that international scrutiny can matter — but it should never have taken five months and such obvious hardship to get to this point.

Make no mistake: this prosecution is part of a growing pattern where governments, terrified by dissent, weaponize ambiguous statutes to crush opposition. When asking questions about education, sexual ideology, and parental rights becomes a prosecutable offense, democracy itself is on the defensive.

American conservatives should treat this as our fight too. If we remain silent while a democratic ally detains a pastor for preaching and for asking questions on behalf of parents, we tacitly accept the erosion of the very freedoms our founders treasured.

Now is the time for pastors, parents, and patriots to speak up loudly for Pastor Son and for religious liberty everywhere. Demand that our leaders make clear that prosecution for preaching is unacceptable, and let South Korea know that free nations do not jail conscience.