It really bothers me that no one seems to be thinking about or talking about Laura Ling and Euna Lee. In case you missed it or forgot in the wave of celebrity passings, these two reporters are going to be doing 12 years in a labor camp in North Korea for no good reason. They are American citizens who were researching and reporting on a story about crossings between the borders of North Korea and China. They were arrested and sentenced to what will amount to hell on earth for them for 12 years. 12 years. 12 FUCKING years.
These women are in their mid thirties. They are some body’s daughter. Somebody’s sister. Euna Lee is somebody’s mother. They face hard labor and “reeducation”. Theyll be beaten, tortured, and forced to work 10 to 15 hours a day logging, mining for coal, and stone quarrying.
One former bodyguard of tiny tyrant Kim - thrown into Yodok after he tried to escape the North - toldTime magazinein 2002 he saw a prisoner dragged by a car until his skin peeled off. The man was then shot to death before the assembled prison population.
An ex-camp guard who defected toSouth KoreatoldAgence France-Presselast year he was “trained to kill all the inmates in an emergency.”
Inmates can fall victim to a wide array of punishments, according to Amnesty International, the UN and theU.S. State Department:
Attempting or abetting escape: torture with hot coals while being hung from a ceiling.
Pregnancy: forced abortion; infants born alive are killed.
Forgetting the words to “patriotic songs”: beatings, forced exercise or public humiliation.
Unauthorized communications: beatings with iron pipes or wooden sticks.
“After the beating, cold water is reportedly poured over the prisoners’ bodies even in the middle of winter,” Amnesty has reported. Others are forced to drink water until their stomachs burst. But most who die in the camps wither away from starvation.
(Read more:http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2009/06/09/2009-06-09_n_korea_hell_may_await_jailed_journos.html#ixzz0Kp5nftNc&C )So why isn’t anyone talking about this? Or about Honduras? Or Iran?
No offense to any other story getting attention on the evening news… but what the hell, world? Why do we care more about MJs glove than these two women?
Excuse, Im going to go be angry now. Why dont you go be angry and write some letters, send up your voice, or do something productive. It may seem futile, but it cannot possibly hurt. Write your government, local or national. Get in touch with Amnesty International, write the UN. Hell, write your local news or news network of choice and ask why the hell they aren’t talking about this.
Hear hear!
