SEOUL – A JOURNALISTS’ group on Friday described North Korea’s continued detention of two US TV reporters as cruel and unjust, saying Pyongyang is using them for diplomatic leverage. 
‘The clear impression is that Laura Ling and Euna Lee are pawns in a much greater struggle,’ the Seoul Foreign Correspondents’ Club (SFCC) said in a statement.
It said the North is holding the women in isolation ‘while awaiting diplomatic moves by the United States and the United Nations.
‘The calculated use of these two journalists for this purpose constitutes a grave abuse of human rights and is an affront to normal international standards,’ the SFCC said.
Lee, a Korean-American, and Ling, a Chinese-American, were detained before dawn on March 17 along the narrow Tumen River which marks the border with China.
The pair, who work for Current TV in California, were working on a story about refugees fleeing the hardline communist North.
The North has said they would go on trial for ‘hostile acts’ and for illegally entering the country. Their trial would be held ‘on the basis of the confirmed crimes committed by them”, it announced on April 24.
Analysts believe the North is trying to pressure the US to open bilateral talks by threatening the pair with a trial. Pyongyang is also angry at the UN for censuring its April 5 rocket launch.
International rights and media freedom groups have urged Pyongyang to release the reporters.
The SFCC said their continued detention ‘is particularly cruel and unjust since they were clearly pursuing a difficult story on a professional basis’. It said the North had failed to specify the charges against Ling and Lee.
It had also not stated when they would go on trial, had not guaranteed their right to a legal defence and had failed to give assurances that diplomatic and other foreign witnesses would be allowed to attend. — AFP
Popularity: 1% [?]
