What is this, an Alexander Solzhenitsyn novel?
Following closely on the relief of Roxana Saberi's release from an Iranian prison comes word that Laura Ling and Euna Lee, two American television journalists for Current TV, have been convicted after a five-day trial for "illegal border crossing" and unspecified "hostile acts." The court sentenced "each of them to 12 years of reform through labor," according to the official state Korean Central News Agency.
From The Washington Post's good coverage:
"We are deeply concerned by the reported sentencing of the two American citizen journalists by North Korean authorities, and we are engaged through all possible channels to secure their release," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said early Monday.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sunday the charges against "these young women are absolutely without merit or foundation."
The verdict cannot be appealed and is final, officials in Seoul have said.
But there is a widespread expectation, at least in South Korea, that the journalists will be released when the North Korean government decides the time is right to talk again to the United States.
And this is what is so disgusting: it looks like Ling and Lee are being used as bartering tools by North Korea while they are experimenting with weapons testing. As the Post notes, the "heavily armed, secretive state -- in the throes of a succession process, as the country's ailing leader prepares to hand power over to his youngest son -- launched a long-range missile in April, detonated a nuclear bomb in May and has renounced the truce that ended the Korean War."
And Ling and Lee look to be caught, rather too literally, in the crossfire.
Incidentally, Lee has a four-year-old daughter and Ling, according to her sister Lisa, suffers from an ulcer.
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