I have been reading updates about the two detained U.S. journalists in North Korea--Euna Lee and Laura Ling--and I feel devastated. I have never met either one of them, but my heart is torn as a fellow human being and journalist. It's always bad to be arrested in another country, but this 12-year prison sentence has to be brutal. The sentence calls for hard labor. Looking on the internet, I found some information that hard labor can include working until starvation or humiliating nudity. What a nightmare. Let's work hard to bring them home. And I have heard that Current TV is working behind the scene on this. Let's hope so.
Update: I just read an article by the Christian Science Monitor, dated June 11, 2009. In that article, it was mentioned that the two women would probably not be held in a "gulag," despited the reference to hard labor. But that their existence there would still be "awful," and they would get little to eat.
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They're not getting out until their full sentences are served. The North Korean government has a videotape of the women bragging that they illegally entered the country. The Obama administration, although claiming it is pursuing all diplomatic channels, wishes to pursue a "hands-off" policy in foreign affairs. It's not going to abandon its overall plan for the benefit of two reporters.
The best America can do is support the women's families until they're released in 2021. Euna has a four year old daughter who needs to find a new mother. The girl will be on 16 when her birth mother returns, so they'll have many good years after that.
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