Free at lastHallelujah! The Taliban have freed the last of the nineteen South Koreans held hostage for the past six weeks.

Taliban insurgents freed seven remaining South Korean hostages in Afghanistan on Thursday after a six-week kidnap ordeal, following a deal that Afghan officials said included a ransom payment by Seoul.

The four women and three men were handed over in two batches to officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Ghazni province in southeast Afghanistan, from where the Taliban seized 23 Christian volunteers on July 19.

Of the twenty-three Christian relief workers originally kidnapped, the Taliban killed two within a few days, and threatened to kill more. Two women were later released.

The release was successfully arranged after South Korea promised to remove all of its troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2007 and to prevent South Korean Christians from undertaking any more aid missions to the country. Since Korea had previously announced that its soldiers would all be home by the end of this year, the only actual concession to the Taliban was the religious one.

Glenn Penner of Voice of the Martyrs Canada finds that deeply troubling.

Ultimately, it seems that the only real concession that the South Korean government was prepared to publicly make (to the Taliban) was the religious freedom of its own citizens. Make no mistake, this decision to withdraw missionaries from Afghanistan and to prevent others from going there is a violation of religious freedom. It is telling Korean Christians, 'You can obey Christ's commission but not in Afghanistan.' This no government has the right to do, even in the name of protecting their citizens.

Mr Penner also points out that the agreement could encourage the Taliban to kidnap Christian aid workers from other countries with the aim of forcing the cessation of Christian missions in Afghanistan.

Christians everywhere rejoice that our brothers and sisters in the Lord are free after their time of suffering. We thank God for their faithful witness. Their ordeal reminds us that Christ sometimes calls his people into dangerous situations. Pray that Christians in South Korea and elsewhere in the world will be ready and willing to serve the Lord as he leads.

h/t: Christian Persecution Blog and Persecuted Church Weblog

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UPDATE (2 Sep.): A pastor at the church that organised the mission says the hostages were "severely beaten" by the Taliban for refusing to convert to Islam.