Naver, the Korea’s largest web portal, carried an article from Japan’s Kyodo news agency that Taliban demanded US$100,000 from the Korean government in return for contact with the hostages. A picture posted below the article caused a stir in cyberspace. In the picture, a Christian carrying a cross has his hands on the head of a Buddhist monk begging for alms. Hundreds of postings in reply denounced the whole of the evangelical Christian movement in Korea in response. Eventually, Naver erased the picture. It is unclear whether it was genuine.

A Christian puts his hand on the head of monk raising alms.

Some users even argued against negotiating for the hostages’ safe return. Despite appeals from the government and families to go easy on the religious angle since it could aggravate the situation, some users are writing on foreign websites that Korean hostages went to Afghanistan not for volunteer services but for missionary work. One netizen posted a video clip on YouTube of captured pictures and writings from the homepage of the victims suggesting that the Korean hostages carried out missionary work in mosques.

On the popular website DC Inside, several netizens said they sent the pictures to the Taliban’s e-mail address and called for the Islamist militants to kill the hostages. Most of those postings were deleted. Korean netizens fear that such posts could endanger a peaceful resolution of the crisis. Families of the Korean hostages also suffer mental anguish due to insults from some netizens. The official websites of Saemmul Church in Bundang, which sent the kidnapped Koreans to Afghanistan, and Korea Foundation for World Aid has been closed due to a flood of attacks.

The Taliban’s abduction of 23 Koreans in Afganistan making headlines on a major Internet portal news site.

Meanwhile, one domestic organization plans to go ahead with sending youth volunteers to countries where the Korean government has issued travel warnings, including Kurdish eastern Turkey, Syria and Tibet, from July 30. An official with the organization said, “Short-term volunteer services to Chechnya or Kabul were canceled because only a small number of people applied. But we are going to send volunteers to other areas such as eastern Turkey at the end of the month as planned.” The organization is also planning to send adult volunteers abroad. The group has dispatched volunteers to conflict areas like Indian Kashmir, Lebanon and Palestine since early July and is to send more adult volunteers to the same regions.

(englishnews@chosun.com )