Ma Young Ae Update

The Daily NK is offering up some investigative reporting to back up its skepticism about Ms. Ma’s asylum claims. Ms. Ma, a former North Korean counterintel agent who worked in China until her defection in 2000, is petitioning for political asylum in the United States because of alleged South Korean persecution.

Read and decide for yourself, but one point in the Daily NK’s favor: threatening people to silence them is persection; offering them fat bribes to keep quiet (even if true) isn’t. Reports from other refugees suggests other issues with her credibility. One point I found less persuasive was the denial of the government officials. While the Daily NK was right to report the government’s position, that position would only have merited more than a sentence or two had the government officials not denied the story.