The two American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee are been accused by South Korean human rights advocates and Christian pastors, of thoughtlessly putting at risk the very people they were meant to be making a documentary about. In North Korea the journalists have just completed five months in custody.
Material collected by the journalists before their arrest, ended up in the wrong hands. People dedicated to getting people out of North Korea, had their identities compromised.
The journalists were said to be doing a story about the trafficking of North Korean women as brides into China. This included however, covering refugee women and children escaping from North Korea.
Police raided the home of South Korean pastor, Rev. Lee Chan-Woo, just four days after the journalists were arrested. The journalists had filmed the secret location where he was caring for North Korean refugee women. In early April Woo was deported and his five secret homes closed. He says the children were sent away to families in China, who do not have the means for taking care of them.
“The Chinese cited scenes from films confiscated from the journalists, when they interrogated me. The reporters visited our place with a noble cause. I did everything I could to help them. How they could be so careless in handling their material. They should have known that if they were caught, they would suffer for sure, but also many others would be hurt because of them” said 20 year old Lee aged.
Following the news of journalist’s arrest, two refugee women ran from the area. They feared being sent back to North Korea and taken to labour camps.
Surprisingly Al Gore and the television channel have remained silent on the issue. However, it is estimated once the journalists break their silence, their report of the events will vary from that of the pastor.
Around 20,000 North Korean refugees have been shuttled through China, mainly to South Korea. Some of the groups doing the work do it through political motivation, while others want to turn North Koreans to Christianity.
The American journalists requested they be permitted to visit one of the secret homes where Woo had been caring for around 20 children, aged 5 to 13 years old. Human traffickers had enticed their mothers with promises of food and then sold them to Chinese men. Lee has asked that the faces of the children and women not be filmed, but this request was ignored. Lee said “The children told me excitedly about being filmed after the journalists had left”.
Recognizing the dangers of the China-North Korea border, many claim the journalists’
“I had to suspend my trips and work because of the tension created by the episode,” protested a human rights official in Seoul, who normally travels anonymously into China to interview North Korean refugees.
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