By Ariel Lin
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

PYONGYANG, North Korea – North Korean government had detained two American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, for “illegally intruding” into the North Korea through its border with China.  They are reporters for Current TV, a San Francisco-based media founded by former Vice President Al Gore.

According to a Seoul-based Christian group, the two journalists were working on a story on North Korean refugees, who try to escape the country by crossing the river into China.  The two journalists planned to interview women forced by human traffickers to strip for online customers and meet with children of defectors.  They were arrested while filming North Korea from the middle of the frozen Tumen River, along North Korea’s border with China.  “The two were said to have ignored warnings from North Korean guards to stop filming,” the fourth person escaped arrest said.

Human rights activist and Protestant pastor, Chun Kiwon, who heads a missionary group providing assistance to North Korean defectors, said the two journalists had met him in Seoul to ask for his advice on their mission.  He says that they told him that they were going to do a program on North Koreans who have fled the North.

In recent years, tens of thousands of North Koreans have streamed across the border into China.  North Korea border guards have crossed the border to pursuit North Koreans or to rob Chinese towns, coal mines and businesses in area.  China often ignores foreign journalists trying to report on North Korea from the border, but North Korean guards often react angrily to reporters trying to film or photograph them.

The U.S. State Department already contacted North Korea and China to secure the release of the two journalists.  The spokesperson Robert Wood told reporters Friday, “There is a lot of diplomacy going on. There have been a number of contacts made.”

For more information, please see:

AFP – North Korea confirms two Americans detained – 21 March 2009

AP – Detained reporters drawn to NKorean refugee story – 21 March 2009

BBC – N Korea confirms reporters held – 21 March 2009

New York Times – N. Korea Says It Is Holding Reporters – 22 March 2009

Voice of America – Report: Detained US Reporters Likely in Pyongyang – 22 March 2009