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The North's state-run Korean Central News Agency said the country has decided to set free Robert Park, a 28-year-old Korean-American from Arizona who slipped into the reclusive communist country, saying he offered "repentance of his wrongdoings."

Park entered the country across the frozen Tumen River on the border with China in late December to call for the regime to release political prisoners, shut down concentration camps and improve human rights conditions, according to his colleagues.

"The relevant organ of the DPRK (North Korea) decided to leniently forgive and release him, taking his admission and sincere repentance of his wrongdoings into consideration," the official mouthpiece said. It did not say when Park will be released.

The agency said Park confessed that he had a "wrong understanding" of North Korea because of "the false propaganda made by the West to tarnish its image."

"I would not have committed such a crime if I had known that the DPRK respects the rights of all the people and guarantees their freedom and they enjoy a happy and stable life," Park was quoted as saying in an interview with the KCNA. "What I have seen and heard in North Korea convinced me that I misunderstood it," he was quoted as saying.

Park also allegedly said his prejudices about the North were shattered when he learned during a visit to Pongsu Church in Pyongyang that freedom of religion was fully protected in the country.

"It was enough to convince me that there was a complete freedom of religion," the agency quoted him as saying. The agency said the detainee did the interview voluntarily.

The announcement comes as the North is facing mounting international criticism on its human rights abuses and crackdowns on religious activities.

The country's Constitution says it provides for freedom of religious belief and its media claim the country "fully guarantees freedom of religion by law" and its religionists are "free to conduct their activities under our best socialist system."

But in reality, religious freedom is severely restricted in the country, where its leader Kim Jong Il is revered as a demigod. Churches and temples in the country are widely seen as fake and his ruling idea of juche (self-reliance) is considered as the Bible.

The people are taught that religion is the "opium of the people" and that missionaries are "a tool of imperialism," according to defectors from the country.

The United States has placed the North on its religious blacklist and singled it out for special criticism over religious repression. "Genuine religious freedom does not exist, and there was no change in the extremely poor level of respect for religious freedom," the State Department said in a recent report.

Despite the draconian restrictions, underground cells for Christianity and other religious activities are increasing in North Korea, according to defectors and human rights activists in Seoul.

"There are more than 30,000 Christians in North Korea," said Do Hee-yun, head of a coalition of 50 civic groups probing rights abuses in the communist country.

"There have been steady executions involving Christians in North Korea, which regards religion as a security threat," he said. The coalition disclosed a list of North Koreans executed publicly or believed to be executed recently for their Christian activities.

They include Ri Hyon Ok, who was killed on June 16 on charges of distributing the Bible and spying for Seoul and the United States. A 33-year-old woman in the northwestern border city of Ryongchon was also arrested for attempting to organize underground Christian cells, the coalition said, citing documents it said were obtained from North Korea.

According to Seoul's nongovernmental Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, those caught carrying out religious activities are sent to prison camps where they face torture and execution.

Anybody who sings gospel songs, listens to sermons, carries religious items such as a Bible or a cross, or gets in touch with evangelists outside the North is arrested and sent to a labor camp to face life-threatening conditions, the group said.