US Journalists Laura Ling & Euna Lee Sentenced to 12 Years Hard Labor in North Korea

Laura Ling and Euna Lee, US journalists that were working for Current TV, a cable and Web network co-founded by former vice president Al Gore, were detained March 17 by North Korean soldiers along the border of North Korea and China. The reporters were working on a story about North Koreans who flee the country.

The US journalists were just recently sentenced to 12 years of hard labor in a labor concentration camp in a North Korea; their sentences cannot be appealed due to the fact that in Communist North Korea, all rulings made by their highest court are final.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the charges against “these young women are absolutely without merit or foundation,” and to add to that, it seems that they were sentenced to a much harsher punishment than anyone was expecting due to the fact that the country is adament on fueling bad blood between themselves and the United States and our neighbors.

It is being speculated that Al Gore may visit North Korea to negotiate the reporters’ release, although a spokeswoman for Gore contacted by the Associated Press declined to comment on the issue.

There are believed to be about 200,000 political prisoners in North Korean concentration camps, where former inmates have reported that the conditions are often brutal, hunger is widespread, and attempts to escape typically result in public execution. Luckily (and hopefully) it is said that Ling and Lee are “very unlikely to be sent to a real prison, since there they would learn too much about things outsiders are not supposed to know.”