Jailed journalists Euna Lee, left, and Laura Ling, sister of former ‘View’ co-host Lisa Ling posing at bottom, left with her
The North Koreans further tested Barack Hussein Obama by sentencing the sister of former ‘The View’ co-host Lisa Ling and another TV reporter to 12 years in a North Korean labor camp. The harsh sentences were more than what outsiders expected.
The two reporters, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, were detained along the border of N. Korea. They were charged with “illegally crossing” the border of the secretive state. The trial lasted 5 days and outsiders were not permitted to attend. Legal analysts expect U.S. officials to negotiate their release.
“If at any point the girls went into North Korea, then we apologize on their behalf,” said Lisa Ling, who noted that her sister suffers from ulcers.
There are over 200,000 political prisoners in the N. Korean labor camps where conditions are described as “brutal, hunger is widespread and attempts to escape usually result in a public execution.”
North Korea, which has brazenly fired off long – range rockets and set off a nuclear bomb in a bold test of the new U.S. president, has yet to respond to Obama’s move to halt N. Korean sea and air shipments suspected of carrying weapons or nuclear technology.
