is claimed that government officials had little time to react. However, there are also reports that a videotape of Kim in captivity, in which he appears calm and openly criticizes U.S. intervention in Iraq, was delivered to the Associated Press Television News offices in Baghdad at the beginning of June, and that on 3 June an AP reporter in Seoul contacted the South Korean foreign ministry asking if they knew of a missing person with a name similar to Kim Sun-il. Reactions South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun's National Security Council issued a statement condemning the killing. South Korea's Ministry of Information and Communication has banned the Kim Sun-il murder video and is trying to prevent it from being spread. The unedited video was available on the website Ogrish.com during the summer of 2004. The website received DDoS attacks as a result of hosting the footage. U.S. President George W. Bush condemned the killers, saying: "The free world cannot be intimidated by the brutal actions of these barbaric people." Reports and editorials in South Korea's press reflected despair at the death of the hostage Kim Sun-il in Iraq, but also defiance towards the kidnappers. South Korean TV stations interrupted their schedules when Mr Kim's body was discovered and subsequently broadcast special rolling news programmes. "Kim Sun-il killed – body identified" was the headline in the independent daily Donga Ilbo. "Kim Sun-il ends up dead" was how the popular daily JoongAng Ilbo reported it. In South Korea, thousands of people rallied against the South Korean military going to Iraq, and to express anger about Kim's death, they burned portraits of the mastermind of his killing, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The South Korean government eventually passed a law barring passport issuance for 1–3 years to South Koreans who "damage national prestige"; the law was interpreted as an attempt to curtail Christian missionaries, especially after the 2007 South Korean hostage crisis in Afghanistan. See also 2007 South Korean hostage crisis in Afghanistan References 1970 births 2004 deaths 21st-century Christian martyrs 21st-century translators 20th-century translators Foreign hostages in Iraq Deaths by decapitation Hankuk University of Foreign Studies alumni South Korean people taken hostage South Korean terrorism victims Terrorism deaths in Iraq South Korean translators South Korean people murdered abroad Iraq–South Korea relations Islamism-related beheadings Filmed executions in Iraq Beheading videos