[4] He was influenced in this by a number of famous South Korean leftists in Germany, including Song Du-yul and Yun Isang; they later suggested that he could help his motherland by working as an economist in North Korea.
[5] His activism also attracted the attention of North Korean government representatives, who further attempted to entice him to defect, claiming that his wife could receive free treatment for her hepatitis in Pyongyang.
Instead of receiving the promised medical treatment, he and his wife were reportedly held at a military camp and forced to study the Juche ideology of Kim Il Sung.
[8] Oh said later that Shin hit him in the face when he said he would come back with some South Koreans, and that she then told him, "we have to pay the price for our wrong decision, but you shouldn't follow an order that victimizes others and just run away.
[2] Official North Korean intermediaries gave Oh letters from Shin and her daughters in 1988 and 1989, and an audio tape with their voices and six photos of the family from Yodok in 1991.
[13] In July 2011, SAGE Korea led by South Korean activist Kim Sung-uk held a special event calling for the release of Shin, along with her daughters.
Oh replied in a press conference that he did not believe the report, citing cases in which abducted Japanese citizens had been falsely declared dead by North Korea.