U.S. reporters Laura Ling and Euna Lee have been sentenced to 12 years hard labor in North Korea after being captured while covering the misery of defectors along the China-North Korea border.
They were sentenced for the “grave crime they committed against the Korean nation and their illegal border crossing.” The grave crime included reporting on the conditions of the last Stalinistic regime in the World with its rampant starvation and abuses.
For the full story, click here.
Just because the U.S. is doing the same thing, doesn’t excuse North Korea’s behavior. The sad thing is that the U.S. has lost the moral right to protest when other nations behave like barbarians. We’ve sunk to their level.
U.S. citizens, on the hand, should denounce this behavior loudly.
FormerFederalNothing is right on the money with his posting.
A smart negotiator/broker might be able to work out some kind of round-robin hostage/reporter exchange that gets a bunch of people wrongly held in various countries out of jail/detention and leaves lil’ Kim with a big facilitators fee. If Kim were smart he could turn this situation into a high profile win-win and reap beaucoup good press for it.
At least they got a speedy trial….
As with Roxana Saberi, I’m sure that the usual suspects of MSM will come out and denounce this, completely oblivious to the fact that our government has been doing the same thing. Worse, our government has been doing this without giving the reporters a sham trial: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/05/11/journalists/
Heck, maybe L. Ron Hubbard needs to do G-ds work. I hear a calling for his ministry. Any similarities?