News Releases

RTNDA Calls for North Korea to Release American Journalists

As the North Korean government announces it will secretly try American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, with Current TV in San francisco, RTNDA calls on that government to release the two and recognize their right to practice the reporting of the important issues of that region in a manner free from government interference or threat of arrest and trial.  North Korean officials arrested Ling and Lee last month while the journalists were conducting interviews along the China-North Korea border.  The team was covering an important international issue, speaking to women and children leaving North Korea to find refuge in China. 

North Korean officials looking to improve relations with the rest of the world should see that the release of the two Americans would show a common understanding that journalists working unfettered by government control and interference serve the world’s people better than those who must fear reprisal.  RTNDA feels that only those countries that recognize and support media freedoms truly earn the respect of their peer nations.  Journalists must be allowed to work for the betterment of the people of the world, and must not face threat of imprisonment or trial.  “The freedom to investigate and report on wrongdoing anywhere in the world is not just an American right,” said RTNDA Chairman Stacey Woelfel.  “It is the right all people have to inform each other about what is wrong and to find a way to make it right.”

This call for Ling and Lee’s release comes on the heels of RTNDA's condemnation of the Iranian’s government decision to imprison American journalist Roxana Saberi for eight years for espionage.  There was no evidence of espionage ever shown and Saberi’s trial was held in secret, lasting just one day.  On that case, RTNDA President Barbara Cochran said, “The freedom for journalists to work and report cannot simply be limited by decree, or be reduced by pressure or prison.”

RTNDA represents members around the world, working to promote and protect journalistic freedoms everywhere it can.  Its leadership will continue to publicize these offenses against the free practice of journalism and fight for those wrongly detained, tried, or imprisoned.