Current.tv journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee are about to arrive in California after spending 140 days in a North Korean prison having been convicted of committing "hostile acts". The North Korean leader Kim Jong Il pardoned the duo after a surprise visit by Bill Clinton. You can watch the arrival of the two journalists live on CNN.com – if you tune in right now… Current.tv founder Al Gore released a statement about the release of Ling and Lee,

Current Media journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who have been detained in North Korea since March 17th, will be coming home on Wednesday morning with former President Bill Clinton, who is at this moment returning from North Korea having obtained their release.

We want to thank the Obama Administration for its continuous and determined efforts to achieve this outcome, and President Clinton for his willingness to undertake this mission.

All of us at Current are overjoyed at Laura and Euna’s safe return. Our hearts go out to them – and to their families – for persevering through this horrible experience.

We will have more to say in the days and weeks ahead. But for now, all our thoughts are with Laura and Euna and their families, who have shown remarkable courage and initiative for the 140 days of this ordeal.

Al Gore and Joel Hyatt
Co-Founders
Current Media link

Great news that the two have been released, but what about Reuters cameraman Ibrahim Jassam? He’s still being detained by U.S. miltary in Iraq after almost a year. Just look at the amount of attention his case has received in the past four weeks in comparison to the North Korea story,

And while I dont want to be too cynical, but how would the U.S. government have reacted if, say, a North Korean hack was found crossing the U.S. border illegally? Or, how about if an Iranian journalist had been found in the possession of confidential U.S. government documents? like Roxanna Saberi in Tehran.

I wonder how ready the U.S. government would be to pardon them? And I wonder how few times the name Ibrahim Jassam appears in and on U.S. media sites during this release fenzy. I’m watching the CNN live feed and I’ve yet to hear the name mentioned once, but I live in completely iditiotic naive hope

Photo taken by Reuters.

While the world welcomes the release of US/iranian journalist Roxana Saberi and the analysts pile in with their take of what it all means for US/Iranian relations, roughly 125 journalists remain behind bars around the world according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. 

The Iranian-Canadian blogger Hossein Derakhshan, arrested in Tehran on November 2008, slips on and off the media radar. However, he has received nowhere near the attention of Saberi or Current.tv journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who were arrested in North Korea in March, 2009. Journalist kidnap cases fare no better. Freelance hacks Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan, who were kidnaped in Somalia some eight months ago, and Beverly Giesbrecht, held on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan since November, 2008, have all but disappeared off the mediascope along with their ransom deadlines.

It appears Roxana Saberi is a better "fit" for today’s US media – new US administration and what it might mean for US/Iranian relations and her former beauty queen status offers editors a cheap, but irresistable tag to hang the story on. Writing on Salon.com, Glenn Greenwald does an excellent job discussing the Roxana Saberi story and highlights a number of cases of journalists being imprisoned where the US media have either chosen to forget, ignore or in some way deem them less newsworthy their plight. In particular, he mentions the story of freelance photographer Ibrahim Jassam,

Right now — as the American press corps celebrates itself for demanding Saberi’s release in Iran — the U.S. continues to imprison Ibrahim Jassam, a freelance photographer for Reuters, even though an Iraqi court last December — more than five months ago — found that there was no evidence to justify his detention and ordered him released.  The U.S. — over the objections of the CPJ, Reporters Without Borders and Reuters — refused to recognize the validity of that Iraqi court order and announced it would continue to keep him imprisoned.

One finds only a tiny fraction of news coverage in the U.S. regarding the treatment of al-Haj, Hussein, Jassam and these other imprisoned journalists as has been devoted to Saberi. link

The Silobreaker graphic above illustrates the media attention given to Amanda Lindhout in Somalia, Ibrahim Jassam in Iraq, Euna Lee in North Korea, Beverly Giesbrecht on the Afghan/Pakistan border and Roxana Saberi in Iran over the last six months. Ibrahim Jassam has all but completely disappeared from the media. How convenient.

Silobreaker claims to draw upon "approximately 10,000 news, blog, research and multimedia sources" for its data compared to the 4,500+ sources Google News uses.

Euna Lee and Laura Ling, the two US journalists arrested on the border between North Korea and China in March, are to face trial in Pyongyang according to North Korean state media,

Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency said in a short dispatch Friday that the North decided to indict the women reporters "based on criminal data confirmed."

Laura Ling and Euna Lee, journalists working for former Vice President Al Gore’s San Francisco-based Current TV, were arrested after they allegedly crossed the border from China on March 17 while reporting on North Korean refugees.

The North said last month it would indict them on charges of unspecified "hostile acts."

If convicted of espionage, the women could face at least five years in prison under North Korean law. link

Two U.S. journalists working on North Korean border with China near the Yalu river, on the western border, have been detained by North Korean military officials. The South Korean television station YTN quoted government officials as saying the two journalists were warned to stop filiming by North Korean guards. When these warnings were ignored, the guards crossed the river into Chinese territory to arrest them. The journalists have been identified as Laura Ling and Euna Lee, both Korean Americans working for the Vanguard section of the Al Gore sponsored Current.tv online outlet. You can learn more about Vanguard in the video below.

"Two American citizens were taken into custody at the Tumen River border between China and North Korea by North Korean border guards," [said a U.S. State Department official] "We have been in touch with North Korean authorities to express our concern about this situation and to secure the immediate release of our citizens." link

UPDATE: North Korea suspects the pair of spying according to one source,

Laura Ling and Euna Lee, journalists working for the San Francisco-based media outlet Current TV, were undergoing "intense interrogation," with investigators poring through their notebooks, videotapes and camera for signs they were spying on the North’s military facilities, the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper said, citing an unnamed South Korean intelligence official. link

UPDATE 30 March – North Korean state news agency KCNA reports the two have been found guilty of entering the country illegally and committing "hostile acts",

"The illegal entry of U.S. reporters into the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] and their suspected hostile acts have been confirmed by evidence and their statements, according to the results of [an] intermediary investigation" conducted by North Korean officials, KCNA reported Monday.

Preparations are being made to try the journalists "on the basis of the already-confirmed suspicions," the report said. link

Meanwhile a Swedish diplomat based in Pyongyang has met with the two journalists over the weekend.

Photo of Laura Ling and Euna Lee taken from The Telegraph