North Korea’s Indictment of Laura Ling and Euna Lee Is Meant to Terrorize Journalists and Paralyze Our Government (And It’s Working)

Someone wake up Al Gore and tell him Manbearpig has two of his reporters:

North Korea said Friday that it had decided to indict two American journalists who have been detained for more than five weeks on charges of illegally entering the country and committing “hostile acts.

“Our related agency has completed its investigation of the American journalists,” North Korea’s state-run news agency, KCNA, reported. “It has formally decided to put them on trial based on confirmed criminal data. [….]

North Korea has said that it would allow the reporters consular access and treat them according to international law. Amnesty International has said it doubted that they will receive a fair trial, given the North Korean judicial system’s lack of independence or transparency. [N.Y. Times]

Nice of Amnesty to put in a token appearance now and then when they’re not too busy fluffing Khalid Sheikh Mohammad’s pillow. Now if only they decided to get vocal about North Korea’s attempt to reenact the Holocaust. Note also that someone in the MSM has finally picked up on what OFK readers caught almost immediately:

Ms. Ling, 32, is the younger sister of Lisa Ling, a television journalist who reported undercover in North Korea for National Geographic in 2006. In the piece, “Inside North Korea,” Lisa Ling posed as part of a medical team that used a hidden camera; her report exposed some of the hardships of living in North Korea and criticized the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il.

Purely coincidental, of course. You can watch Lisa Ling’s documentary here.

A Facebook group with about 2,400 members has sprung up to show support for the women and members have pledged to hold several rallies: one at the MSNBC studios in New York next month and two next Tuesday, one outside Current TV’s office in San Francisco and the other at the high school that Laura Ling attended in California.

There are actually two large groups, one with over 500 members and one with over 2500 members, and if you can figure out how to post a link in the comments, please do. For the record, I haven’t heard a peep from Gore, Obama, or Clinton since Euna Lee and Laura Ling were first grabbed at the border.

A message to Mr. Gore’s spokeswoman on Friday was not immediately returned. In addition, Current TV has removed content relating to the capture of Ms. Ling, a reporter, and Ms. Lee, an editor, on its web site.

No doubt, they’re believers in the kind of quiet diplomacy that proved so wildly successful for South Korea. No doubt, Ling and Lee can go free for the right price or concession from us.

I swear, they have a word for that kind of tactic.

President Bush removed North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism on October 11, 2008. Thank goodness for that, because our government has absolutely no idea how to deal with terrorism. Maybe they should mobilize the New York Philharmonic again.