Remember those two reporters seized by the Norks, whom Bill Clinton went over and sprung earlier this month? The expats-in-Korea blogosphere was abuzz over what would happen to the people featured in the videotape their cameraman shot, which was confiscated. Now official word is seeping out: nothing good is happening to them:
Video footage shot by two TV journalists who were detained in North Korea after filming on the Chinese border was used by China to round up on North Korean refugees. China also deported one South Korean human rights activist who is seen in the footage and closed five orphanages that had protected North Korean children. … Chinese police also confiscated related materials including list of activists working for North Korean refugees in China, data on North Korean orphans, and video footage showing North Korean women who were sold into the Chinese countryside or appeared in porn videos.
Those unfortunate North Korean refugees who get deported back to the Dear Leader’s embrace can expect torture or, arguably, worse.
Says another commenter re the two journalists, who are no doubt sifting through book deals:
So if I’m reading this correctly, Pastor Lee was allowed to place 21 kids with shelters or Chinese families — families that appear not to want them, and for the time being — and another 25 kids are being hunted down for deportation to North Korea, or for all we know, already have been. Make what assumptions you will about their fate — I assume that China’s brutality is proportional to its ability to commit any given atrocity outside the presence of witnesses.
Other refugees, denied the assistance of a network to help them escape North Korea, will now be limited to the option of dying in place. There won’t be a Bill Clinton visit for them, and I doubt Bill Richardson raised the subject while he was whoring for the cameras.
[...] I hope that Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee will use some of the media interest they’ve attracted to bring attention to the horrors they were used to help perpetrate. I suppose there is no undoing what is done, but there is atonement in what Ling and Lee could still do to save others.
They’d better start soon. A lifetime may not be enough to repay a karmic debt this ghastly. But that’s still more than can be said for the thugs who run China.
Comment by Spiny Norman on 8/21 @ 9:38 am #
Such lovely people.
Hard to say who’s worse, the Chinese or the Norks. The maniacal dwarf with a pompadour in Pyongyang may be an easy target to mock, but the faceless oligarchy in Beijing are just “them”.
Comment by geoffb on 8/21 @ 9:44 am #
Journalists, reporters are always in the business of “spying”. We know who they were “spying” on. The question here is exactly who they and Al Gore’s “Current TV” were “spying” for. “Operation Trust” has been done in many variations over the past 100 years.
Comment by william on 8/21 @ 11:16 am #
Blame Clinton! heh
Comment by Danger on 8/21 @ 11:27 am #
Most people approach the snark/stupid line with caution. And then there are guys like william.
Comment by guinsPen on 8/21 @ 11:31 am #
As a 20 year college professor, I find it amazing the lack of ability for American college students to even
writeread the English language.Fixed.
Comment by cranky-d PhD on 8/21 @ 11:56 am #
As the holder of a PhD, I’m surprised william was ever granted one. Then again, I don’t believe him.
Comment by cranky-d PhD on 8/21 @ 11:57 am #
Of course, he never said he had one, just that he is a “professor.” Not the same thing.
Comment by Kresh on 8/21 @ 12:20 pm #
So, he’s like the Professor in Gilligan’s Island? The Professor that could do anything that’s kinda needed… except the important stuff like getting off the island? William can argue strawmen and throw talking points like a discus-thrower… but can’t do anything important like critical thinking?
I see the connection now.
Comment by Eben on 8/21 @ 12:35 pm #
William is the guy that takes the Auschwitz tour and during the 10 minute bathroom break he clears his throat and starts his comedy routine.
When no one laughs he blames it on the break down in the education system and Fox News.
Comment by sdferr on 8/21 @ 12:36 pm #
Setting his guitar and lute instructions aside and focusing on his “educational work” here at PW, he seems to me rather more like an ancient greek slave — of the sort they called paidagogoi — who, trusted enough by their masters, would lead the master’s child to school and there await the child’s need to go home. While he waited, he might pick up an lesson or two from the instructing sophist — a Gorgias or a Protagoras type — and, finding himself able to recite what he had heard this great font of knowledge intone, take it upon himself to set up a bit of schooling for the other slaves back at home.
Comment by cranky-d PhD on 8/21 @ 12:49 pm #
Thanks to sdferr, I have yet again learned something new here at PW. Also, that’s some sophisticated snark going on there.
Comment by Jeffersonian on 8/21 @ 1:56 pm #
What the hell is wrong with these people? Don’t they know they’re getting free health care, free education, free housing, (occasionally) free food and top-notch gun control??
Comment by cranky-d on 8/21 @ 2:18 pm #
North Korea sounds like a progressive paradise!
Comment by Andrew the Noisy on 8/21 @ 2:21 pm #
You’re all missing the important question:
Did the girls get to file their story or not?
Comment by Rusty on 8/21 @ 3:07 pm #
No ,William, I blame people like who believe that intent is a virtue.
Comment by RD on 8/21 @ 5:11 pm #
Aside from legitimate diplomatic issues, that really sticks in your craw, doesn’t it?
Comment by happyfeet on 8/21 @ 5:13 pm #
It’s not like the deal hadn’t been cut beforehand. This is just dirty socialist theater, RD. You act like you don’t listen to NPR to where it’s all very Fresh and New but for real it’s just the way they do things forever now.
Comment by RD on 8/21 @ 5:23 pm #
That’s right happyfeet, I implicitly support North Korea by listening to the Car Guys and Prarie Home Companion.
Comment by pdbuttons on 8/21 @ 5:32 pm #
what a coup/ not that i begrudge the ex fudger in chief..he did get them released
but compared to the evil bush policy of saving millions of africans from aids or signing nuclear agreement with india to box in chinese..
yawn
Comment by JD on 8/21 @ 6:10 pm #
I see meya/RD dropped by to moon everyone again tonite.
Comment by JD on 8/21 @ 6:13 pm #
RD does give us a great view into the warped viewpoint of the Leftists. It acknowledges that there are legitimate issues that can be raised, then breezily dismisses them, and ascribes the illegitimate to those that do not agree with RD.
Fuck you, meya/RD
Comment by newrouter on 8/21 @ 6:50 pm #
i’m a birkenstock ed shulz fan at a demonstration put on by ANSWER
Comment by RD on 8/21 @ 7:12 pm #
Yeah, and I’m a wingtip SS agent that kept potential dissenters away from Bush Jr. during “touchy” public debates.
I’m also the sensibly-priced loafer Homeland Security chief that was instructed to raise our apparent threat status on the very eve of a presidential election.
Comment by newrouter on 8/21 @ 7:19 pm #
i’m an idiot who believes unsubstantiated claims made by someone trying to sell a book
Comment by newrouter on 8/21 @ 7:22 pm #
yeah i’m a lunatic statist who gets all “wee-weed” when my messiah is shown to be a fool and a loser.
Comment by Rusty on 8/22 @ 5:47 am #
RD is a racist, I think.
Comment by SBP on 8/22 @ 5:59 am #
William is a music teacher.
Which, of course, automatically makes him an expert on science, economics, politics, and health care policy. HE HAS TENURE, PEOPLE! Show some respect!
Comment by SBP on 8/22 @ 6:00 am #
Rusty: RD is also a homophobe.
Comment by Rusty on 8/22 @ 6:55 am #
RD is maybe a caricature of a person. Nobody that can type is that dumb on purpose. Oh. Wait. maya.
Comment by FeFe on 8/23 @ 2:35 pm #
But wasn’t Bill Richardson whoring for the cameras for character reference material when he gets indicted on pay-to-play in his state?
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