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Summer 2009 Bulletin
Endangered Journalists
North Korea Releases American Journalists; Iran Detains Freelancer
On August 4, 2009, American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee were granted a “special pardon” by the North Korean government and released from custody after being detained for over four months. News of the pardon came immediately following a meeting between former U.S President Bill Clinton and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. During his visit, Clinton participated in what North Korean news agency KCNA called a “wide-ranging exchange of views on matters of common concern.” By 7:30 p.m. on August 4, The Associated Press (AP) reported that the journalists were with Clinton on a plane back to the United States.
Reuters reported August 4 that KCNA stated, “Clinton expressed words of sincere apology to Kim Jong Il for the hostile acts committed by the two American journalists against the [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] after illegally intruding into it.” However, on August 5, Reuters reported that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denied there was an apology. At an August 5 news conference in Nairobi, Kenya, Clinton said of the apology report: “That’s not true. That did not occur.”
Ling and Lee were arrested by North Korean border guards March 17 when they allegedly crossed the border from China while filming a report for the San Francisco-based cable television station and Web site Current TV. Cameraman Mitch Koss and a Chinese guide, who were with the women when they were apprehended, escaped into China. Current TV was launched in 2005 with backing from former Vice President Al Gore, who is now the organization’s chairman. For more on the arrest, see “Two American Journalists Arrested, to Face Trial in North Korea” in the Spring 2009 issue of the Silha Bulletin.
On June 8, Ling and Lee were charged with crossing the border between China and North Korea illegally, and committing “hostile acts,” according to The Washington Post on June 9. The two were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor in a North Korean work camp by the Central Court of North Korea, the nation’s highest court. The Committee to Protect Journalists reported June 17 that no outside observers were allowed to attend the trial, and that the North Korean government had not disclosed any of the evidence it used to try the case.
The journalists’ families had refrained from talking with the press prior to the sentencing, but they released a joint statement June 8 which, according to the AP on June 9, asked North Korea to “to show compassion and grant Laura and Euna clemency and allow them to return home to their families.”
On August 4, FOX News reported that the families released a second joint statement, saying they were “grateful to our government … for their dedication to and hard work on behalf of American citizens.”
Current TV remained silent on the subject of its journalists’ arrest and trial until after their release. Gore also refrained from making any official statement on their situation until they were freed. The Post reported on June 18 that “media observers said Current TV’s decision not to air anything related to the situation could be justified when dealing with an unpredictable nation such as North Korea.”FOX News reported August 4 that once the journalists’ release was secured, Gore and Current TV co-founder Joel Hyatt released a joint statement saying “Our hearts go out to them and to their families for persevering through this horrible experience.”
The Post reported June 18 that Tala Dowlatshahi, New York director of the advocacy group Reporters sans Frontieres (RSF or Reporters without Borders), “warned against blaming the journalists or Current TV’s ‘backpack journalism’ approach.” Dowlatshahi told The Post that “to say that this type of guerilla journalism is putting journalists in more risk than traditional journalism is not the issue. The issue is these women are not criminals, they’re journalists, and they were not given proper legal treatment.”
Speculation that Ling and Lee would be released persisted throughout their imprisonment. The AP reported on June 9 that Jeong-ho Roh, the director of the Center for Korean Legal Studies at Columbia Law School, supported the theory that Ling and Lee would not have to serve their sentence. “I don’t think the reporters will do hard labor,” Roh said, noting that it was “not in the North Koreans’ interests to make them go through that.”
The New York Times and The Post both reported August 5 that North Korea had been waiting for a “high profile” envoy to secure the journalists’ release. The Post wrote that Gore “may not have been acceptable because he was viewed as their boss and thus not an appropriate symbol of the United States.” On August 4, FOX News quoted Jim Walsh, a research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies international security, as saying that Clinton was a “rock star” who would have more influence than Gore. According to The Times on August 5, Hillary Clinton became a less likely candidate for a visit following her comments on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on July 20 that compared North Korea’s nuclear tests to the attention-seeking behavior of a child. KCNA quoted North Korea officials who called Clinton “by no means intelligent” and a “funny lady” in response, according to CNN on July 23.
According to the AP on June 9, Secretary of State Clinton said that the Obama administration was treating Ling and Lee’s imprisonment and North Korea’s recent testing of nuclear weapons as “entirely separate matters,” but news organizations suggested that the two situations were politically linked. The Times cited “analysts” in reporting June 8 that the women were “pawn[s] in a rapidly deteriorating confrontation between the United States and North Korea – a potential bargaining chip for the Pyongyang regime and a handicap for Washington in its efforts to pressure the government over its recent missile and nuclear tests.”
The AP reported on August 4 that former President Clinton’s visit could open the door to new nuclear talks with the nation. “This is a very potentially rewarding trip,” said Mike Chinoy, author of “Meltdown: The Inside Story of the North Korean Nuclear Crisis,” adding “it could be a very significant opening and breaking this downward cycle of tension and recrimination between the U.S. and North Korea.” According to The Times on August 5, Obama administration officials said Clinton went to North Korea as a private citizen, did not carry a message from President Obama to Kim Jong Il, and only had the authority to negotiate for the women’s release.
According to The Times on August 5, Gore said that “President Obama and countless members of his administration have been deeply involved,” in the effort to bring the women home. “To everybody who’s played a part in this,” he said, “we are so grateful.”
Journalist, Companions Detained in Iran
On August 1, Iranian authorities arrested an American freelance journalist and his two companions and accused them of spying after they crossed the border from Iraqi Kurdistan. Friends and family members of Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd, and Joshua Fattal say that the group was simply out for a scenic hike when they wandered across the border by mistake.
Bauer is a freelance journalist, and Shourd and Fattal have both written extensively about their travels in the Middle East, said Shon Meckfessel, a fourth member of the group who did not go along on the hike because he said he was not feeling well. In a letter published August 6 in The Nation, Meckfessel called his friends’ presence in Iran “a simple and very regrettable mistake.”
In an August 4 interview for NPR’s “All Things Considered,” Sandy Close, who had recently worked with Bauer in her role as the executive editor of New American Media, said she had “no idea” how Bauer ended up crossing into Iran. “Never in the year we have been in correspondence has he indicated any interest in covering Iran,” Close said. “He didn’t know Farsi. It’s unthinkable to me that he would have decided on some crash adventure.”
According to an August 5 story in the Los Angeles Times, Mohammed Karim Abedi, a member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security Committee, told Al-Alam, Iran’s state-run Arabic language TV channel, that it would be up to the “relevant authorities” to decide how to handle the case. “This issue is condemnable, and an apology from the U.S. side will not be acceptable, because the area is a very sensitive one,” Abedi said. “We can definitely say that they have come as spies.”
– Sara Cannon
Silha Center Staff
– Jacob Parsley
Silha Research Assistant
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