Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
June 9, 2009
NYT Two-Faced On Journalist Detentions

The New York Times editors opine today on North Korea’s Cruel Verdict, the sentencing in North Korea of two journalists to twelve years of hard labor for spying. The journalists were caught trespassing on North Korean ground and presented varying explanations of their intent. Still:

Whatever the case, they do not deserve to be sent to a brutal labor camp where, […] With no access to lawyers or due process, the two journalists did not have anything approaching a fair chance to defend themselves.

Since September 2 2008 Reuters cameraman Ibrahim Jassam is detained by the U.S. military in Iraq without presenting any evidence and despite a court order to set him free:

"He used to be handsome, but now he's pale and he's tired," said Walid, who says his brother had no ties to insurgents. "Every now and then while we were talking, he would start crying. He was begging me: 'Please do something to get me out of here. I don't know what is the charge against me.'

The New York Times has neither reported nor opined on the detention of Ibrahim Jassam.

Comments

b,
You have captured the American Exceptionalism perfectly. The idea that if NK does a horrible thing it is horrible, while if the USA does a horrible thing it is just fine is at the root of America’s problems.

Posted by: huishi | Jun 9 2009 8:33 utc | 1

How about Sami al Haq, the Al-Jazeera correspondent held for six years at Gitmo without charges nor a trial and finally released last year.
http://cpj.org/blog/2009/06/meeting-sami-al-haj.php

Posted by: ensley | Jun 9 2009 12:48 utc | 2

I bet that the two journalists in NK knew the charges against them. I also bet that the hard labour will not be as bad as the torture those detained by the US and its puppet states receive. I give NK 1 up on the US on this one.

Posted by: edwin | Jun 9 2009 12:52 utc | 3

So reporters are special people somehow? I say that if these two aren’t tortured then the NK’s aren’t even in the ball park. And then there’s the little matter of the ten thousand or so foreigners that the US military holds in brutal detention in various countries, without any due process, many to be tortured. But that’s some news that isn’t fit to print, apparently.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Jun 9 2009 14:01 utc | 4

Has NK tested any of their missiles against journalists yet, a la Serbia and Baghdad?

Posted by: biklett | Jun 9 2009 16:12 utc | 5

I just had this discussion with a workmate. Thanks, as always for your clarity Bernhard.

Posted by: beq | Jun 9 2009 16:49 utc | 6

I think NK is playing this *very* smart. They’ve got two (somewhat) prominent press personalities in prison, and are waiting for the US response.
I’m not sure what’s going to happen – will Obama abandon them? If the administration makes any *public* overtures, NK simply raises the specter of Guantanamo…
…which makes me wonder – might this be a prime opportunity for everyone to save face? NK gets to look good for releasing some US journalists, and Obama gets a new raison’d’etre to close down the rendition programs…..”for risk of alienating our friends in the world” or some such BS.
Am I crazy here?

Posted by: Jeremiah | Jun 9 2009 21:35 utc | 7

Although it is highly unlikely, the two reporters could actually be guilty of spying, you know. None of us has seen the evidence against them, and just because it involves North Korea we shouldn’t immediately declare that the two reporters have to be innocent of the charges. Even the most oppressive regime sometimes gets a trial verdict right. I do remember vaguely that it involved some papers the women were carrying but can’t remember now what they were.

Posted by: ensley | Jun 9 2009 21:46 utc | 8

Am I crazy here?
Jeremiah, you might be.
Not many in US will think there’s anything wrong with holding foreign “terrorists” (regardless of what they really are) in secret prisons–because they are “out to hurt us.”
But, if a “terrrorist regime” holds Americans under whatever charge, it is “obviously” a miscarriage of justice.
There are people outside US who might not see things this way–but US politicians aren’t accountable to them.

Posted by: kao-hsien-chih | Jun 10 2009 1:39 utc | 9

aah the numbers … remember that big win in the media in Lebanon?
http://friday-lunch-club.blogspot.com/2009/06/aah-that-popular-vote.html
journalist were supposed to check their information once upon a time …

Posted by: outsider | Jun 10 2009 4:11 utc | 10

news report, 9 June 2009:
The US army said Tuesday it was holding around 11,000 prisoners in Iraq. . .In total, 11,057 people are being detained in three prisons run by US forces at Camp Cropper and Camp Taji, which are in and around Baghdad, and Camp Bucca, which is in southern Iraq.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Jun 10 2009 4:29 utc | 11

…and that surely is not a complete total.
Being ‘incarcerated’ or ‘in prison’ in the US has, as usual, and for public consumption, a quaint definition: those counted as prisoners are felons convicted of a prison term of more than one year, and at time of counting in a state or federal prison. All the other ppl who are locked up by the penal system are not tallied. It is even possible that felons who are temporarily absent from their base prison are subtracted (e.g. in a detention center next to the court house, etc.)
Wiki: “Approximately one in every 18 men in the United States is behind bars or being monitored.” link
In the Iraq case, secret, which means simply uncounted, and ‘Iraqi’ prisons are surely not added in, even without fudging the definitions of ‘prisoner.’

Posted by: Tangerine | Jun 10 2009 17:50 utc | 12