N. Korea - US journalists to spend 12 years in labor camp

North Korea sentences two US journalists to 12 years in jail

I've just caught word about the sentencing of Laura Ling and Euna Lee - two Bay Area based journalists - to 12 years in a North Korean labor camp. Now, I'd like to say that this blog is an unbiased analysis...

...but then I'd be lying.

Of course I have a vehement emotional response to this. For a long time, journalism was my calling. It was what I wanted to spend my life doing - not this overcommercialized, cheap shot news reporting, but real human stories. That's exactly what these women were doing, and look what happened to them for it.

Ling and Lee were arrested on the Chinese end of a bordertown between China and North Korea for collecting footage of North Korean refugees crossing the Tumen River.

Now, I understand - you can say that they were breaking the law in North Korea with how they entered the country, though some reports dispute this. There's disagreement between whether or not they entered North Korean territory. And I understand this isn't the American legal system where one is innocent until proven guilty, so I know that there are cultural disparities in the way I regard this judgment. I don't consider it my place to judge the rightness or wrongness of the North Korean legal system.

But the fact that these two women were sentenced to 12 years in a labor camp for unspecified crimes for taking on a task that I deeply and genuinely respect hurts me. I can't find another word for it. It doesn't just bother me, it doesn't vex me, it doesn't confuse me - it hurts me.

Word is North Korea is holding these journalists as bargaining chips for more concessions regarding their nuclear tests. I know, this is going to sound wishy-washy and idealistic, but I feel such deep disappointment that people are still willing to stoop so low.

I hope that these women are released on humanitarian grounds - and even moreso, I hope that the Obama administration puts its money where its mouth is and makes a statement by action that people are not pawns in a game of chess between national leaders.