U.S. Reporters Jailed in Iran and North Korea
This is a little ironic after the recent CIA Gitmo “torture” memo release.
North Korea has incarcerated two female journalists from the United States. Laura Ling and Euna Lee visited North Korea in hopes to interview defectors. They flew into Seoul and held meetings there for the beginning of their trip. They flew to Yanji, a small Chinese city over the border of North Korea after their sessions were complete. The women were advised not to leave the small city or else face possible incrimination by North Korea. Rather than heed the warning, the women crossed the Tumen River, in which reports after which are varying. One report states that the women were taken into custody because they would not stop filming, while another one states they were pursued back across the frozen river onto Chinese soil where they were brought back to North Korea.
The women have been jailed in North Korea for over a month now, while the Obama administration states it is trying to free them through diplomacy. I’m curious as to why none of us here have really heard anything about this? Nobody on the outside knows how the women are doing and Kim Jong Il is unlikely to release them anytime soon because of what U.S. captives mean for his country (usually money and food to continue to subsist on) and due to the grudge he is holding against the U.N. and the West for their reaction to his missile launch.
Kim Jong Il no has a lot of leverage against the United States and these two women will merely be pawns in this game. I hope that the “diplomacy” style does not wind up like Carter’s 444 day escapade.
Either way, within 24 hours Ms Ling and Ms Lee were taken in separate vehicles to Pyongyang for questioning. A week later it was announced that they would be put on trial.
Conviction for illegal entry carries up to three years in prison; the more serious crimes of espionage or “hostility toward North Korean people” are punishable by five to ten years.
The US State Department has said that it is making every diplomatic effort to free the two women and Mr Gore is said to have contacted Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, to ask for her assistance. The US has no embassy in North Korea but a representative of the Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang is said to have seen the journalists at the end of last month.
Koh Yu Hwan, a professor at Dongguk University in Seoul, said that Pyongyang was unlikely to release the journalists soon. Having two Americans was like having a “piece of rice cake rolling in for free”, he said.
“They’re going to make maximum use of this for multiple purposes. Rather than a trial by a criminal code, it will be a political trial.”
Iran has also taken a U.S.-Iranian journalist prisoner and has officially sentenced her to 8 years in prison based on charges of espionage.
Roxana Saberi, a 31-year-old Iranian-American journalist, was convicted of spying and sentenced to eight years in prison on Saturday by Iran’s Revolutionary Court.
Ms. Saberi, a former American beauty queen, has been in detention in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison since Jan. 31. She was charged with espionage earlier this month and tried this week behind closed doors.
The truth behind why she was detained in the first place is very disconnected with myriad reasons, which can only be expected by another “state”-run government much like North Korea.
This makes me wonder if Obama’s new call of diplomacy and negotiatons with hostile nations will still consider no pre-conditions…
“Ms Saberi has been sentenced to eight years in jail and I am going to appeal,” her lawyer Abdolsamad Khoramshahi told AFP. Under Iranian law, the verdict can be appealed within 20 days.
The case against Saberi, who has both US and Iranian nationality, has raised deep concerns in Washington and among rights groups.
She was initially reported to have been detained for buying alcohol, an illegal act in the Islamic republic.
The ISNA news agency, quoting an unnamed judiciary source, confirmed that a revolutionary court had sentenced Saberi for espionage — a charge that could have risked the death sentence. No date was given for the verdict.
“Roxana said in court that her earlier confessions were not true and she told me she had been tricked into believing that she would be released if she cooperated,” her father Reza Saberi told AFP.
“Her denial is documented in her case but apparently they did not pay attention to it,” he added, without saying when he had spoken to his daughter.
“We are very shocked and we were not expecting it. We were hoping for six months and then clemency.”
The court ruling comes despite calls by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for Saberi’s release and President Barack Obama’s diplomatic overtures to Iran after three decades of ruptured ties.
[...]
Last month, Saberi’s parents — who came to Iran to pursue her case and have visited her at least twice — appealed to Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for her release, saying she was in a “dangerous” mental state.
Her mental state must be an indication of the wonderful treatment in Iran and the fact that no other countries use cruel and unusual punishment like the United States right? At least we make sure that our methods meet protocol standards and we only persecute real criminals and terrorists unlike others.
Clinton said she had delivered a letter to Iranian officials on March 31, seeking Saberi’s release and making appeals on behalf of two other US citizens.
Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent, vanished on the Gulf island of Kish two years ago, and student Esha Momeni has been prevented from leaving Iran despite being released from jail last year.
After three decades of severed ties, the Obama administration has called for dialogue with Tehran over its controversial nuclear drive, which Western powers fear could be a cover for efforts to build an atomic bomb.
So we are to believe that Iran does not have bad intentions with their nuclear facilities whilst they kill and capture U.S. citizens, whom we conveniently do not hear much about from our own media propagandists?
To help Roxana please visit www.freeroxana.net
Obama-Chavez: BHO Gets A History Book
Victor Hugo Chavez, after the brotherly love hand shake, gave Obama a book on Americas “interference” in Latin America over the last 50 years (At least Chavez did not get an Ipod with his speaches). Chavez went on to say Obama is “ignorant” and needs to be educated in Latin American History. Thank you Professor Chavez. Venezuela went on to tell Sec of State Clinton that he will restore their Ambassador to America:
That announcement crowns a week in which Obama rejected two centuries of U.S. “heavy-handedness” toward Latin America and raised the highest hopes ever for a rapprochement with Cuba, with which it severed ties 48 years ago. Venezuela under Chavez has become a close ally of Cuba.
So it seems 50 years of human rights violations, inhumane treatment of the people and heavy handed rule that includes state control of the press and air waves will be granted a cart blanch pass by this appeasing administration. Hillary Clinton and Obama spokes persons say there is much ground to be covered before anything concrete happens, but the apologetic rhetoric continues.
The Coming Gun Crisis: “From My Cold Dead Hands”
As many are aware, times are tough not only in the states, but worldwide. What accompanies times of uncertainty and turmoil is usually not pretty and not sane. There are many things that can cause a person to snap, whether it’s a history of psychiatric problems, the unknown, the loss of a loved one, a break-up/divorce, the loss of a job, the loss of tons of money in the market, etc.
Well, with everything that is occuring in and around us, there has been an increase in mass murders, homicides and suicides. Yes, guns were involved in many of these cases, but not all. Guns, also are not the cause of a person snapping or being able to cause harm to people. Guns can also save lives and they save more lives per year than they kill. Read more
Afghan Law That Legalizes Rape Poses Problem for Obama and Clinton
WASHINGTON — As first lady, senator and then Democratic candidate for president, Hillary Clinton was vocal in her fight for the rights of women in Afghanistan.
But, as President Obama’s secretary of state, Clinton now finds herself in the uncomfortable position of watching as the U.S.-backed Afghan president signs a law that critics say gives Shiite men the right to rape their wives.
International criticism pressure forced President Hamid Karzai to say Saturday that the law is under review, and he has spoken to Clinton about it.
The developments come as Obama seeks NATO support in Europe for his plan to ramp up the war against terrorists in Afghanistan. Back at home in Washington, administration officials have struggled this week with how to respond to Karzai’s signing of the so-called Shia Family Law without debate in the Afghan parliament. The law’s most controversial provisions address sexual intercourse in marriage.
“As long as the husband is not traveling, he has the right to have sexual intercourse with his wife every fourth night,” Article 132 of the law says. “Unless the wife is ill or has any kind of illness that intercourse could aggravate, the wife is bound to give a positive response to the sexual desires of her husband.”
Such a law runs contrary to the stated goals of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan — to pursue human rights and to help liberate women from religious oppression. It is a cause that has been championed by previous administrations, and particularly by previous first ladies.
The details of the law surfaced this week, just days after one of those former first ladies, Clinton, told the International Conference on Afghanistan at The Hague, Netherlands: “Women’s rights are a central part of American foreign policy in the Obama administration; they are not marginal; they are not an add-on or an afterthought.”
Afghanistan’s constitution, which was passed in 2004, calls for equal rights for all men and women. But the constitution also says that no law can contradict the laws of Islam. And in situations where the constitution lacks provisions, courts are allowed to use Islamic law, which critics say does not allow for equal rights.
This is so outrageous, I just don’t know what to say. Unbelievable. Beat, Kill, Rape. It’s all good in Afghanistan.
White House Confuses Hillary with Phone Sex Operator
This is just too good to change at all or even add commentary… From RedState:
That’s Hillary. Mrs. Clinton if you’re nasty.
Yesterday, in what is the latest in a long, hard series of bungles by the White House, reporters who called for an “on-the-record briefing call with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton” were offered the opportunity to provide a credit card if they felt like “getting nasty.”
According to Fox News, the White House distributed an email to the press announcing a conference call, but included the number for a phone sex line rather than the conference call number. Asked for comment White House Press Secretary Bill Burton said the mistake was “one of the stupider things FOX News has covered lately.” I couldn’t agree more Bill, it is one of the stupid things Obama’s administration has done lately and that the press has subsequently covered or, as in this case, not covered.
This may sound cliché at this point, but fantasize with me for moment. Imagine that this conference call had been scheduled for Condi Rice. Are you there with me, baby? You’re calling for Condi and you get Candi? The press would have gone NUTS. Bush would have been bound, gagged, and whipped for it over the course of days. It would have been a press orgy and, what’s more, the one-time thing would have come back to haunt the Bush team for years after. Every time they sent out a press release about Condi … oh, they’d stick with their own phone numbers, sure. But everyone would remember the other number. From that one time. It would be awkward.
