Attachment
Two United States female journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, were aware of the risks when journeyed to the North Korean/Chinese border. They have been accused of having illegally crossed the frozen river Tumen. However, other reports declare the women were arrested on the Chinese side of the border, by North Korean guards, who opposed having their photos taken. The women’s cameraman and guide were able to escape.
The journalists were investigating a story about the trafficking of Korean women and young girls, into the desperately female-deprived nation of China, where there is an over-supply of approximately 32 million unmarried males, beneath the age of 25 years.
The two women were working on behalf of an Internet channel, a San Francisco based Current TV, which Al Gore, a former US vice president, co-founded.
The North Korean high court has found the journalists guilty of conducting unidentified ‘hostile acts’ and sentenced them to 12 years of reform through hard labour.
United States Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, said “The charges against these young women are absolutely without merit or foundation". It is reported that Clinton is demanding the immediate release of the women. It is possible that President Obama will send Al Gore to try to negotiate a release.
“Ruling by Pyongyangs’s secretive high court are final and an appeal won’t be allowed", said Choi Eun-suk, a professor on North Korean legal affairs at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University. The sentence has been much more severe than expected.
Inmates are classed as ‘tailless animals’ and chance execution is not unknown in the camps, defectors have revealed in shocking stories of North Korea’s gulags (prisons). The U.S. State Department has estimated that approximately 150,000 to 200,000 prisoners are imprisoned in the camps, which are located in valleys in remote mountainous regions in the Central and Northern areas of North Korea.
‘Nazi-style’
The 2007 Anti-Slavery International report said “The camps are overcrowded with unhygienic facilities. Combined with inadequate food, water and medical care, plus grueling forced labour, means that deaths in the labour camps are not uncommon".
Many analysts look on Pyongyang’s move as merely a negotiating tactic, at a point in time when the United States is leaning on the United Nations for sanctions, in order to punish North Korea because of its latest nuclear test and volley of missile tests, as well as Pyongyang’s recent hostility.
This is not the first time North Korea has detained Unites States citizens.
More about the author, take few minutes to check it all at Win A Resort(http://winaresort.com)
Dr Wendy Stenberg-Tendys and her husband are CEO's of YouMe Support Foundation (http://youmesupport.org) providing high school education grants for children who are without hope. A chance to fulfill their dreams at whatever level they chose to.
Feel free to contact Wendy on admin@youmesupport.org
Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/
