Asia

North Korea

{This graph represents scores that have been modified by CIMA so that higher scores indicate a better media situation. It is intended to show trends over time; each index measures significantly different factors of press freedom. To see an explanation for how this graph was created, click here.}
 

Reporters Without Borders Description:

North Korea is one of the hardest countries for the foreign media to cover. The authorities do grant press visas for cultural or sporting events or during the visits of foreign leaders but once there, reporters are closely watched by officials who take good care to prevent them talking to the people. Entire regions of the country are totally closed off to the international press.

It is also very difficult for the foreign press to freely report in the Chinese border provinces, where investigations into the plight of refugees and border smuggling are highly risky. “Chinese police raids and the presence of lots of infiltrated North Korean agents makes working on the border very complicated”, said one journalist working for an independent North Korean radio station based in Seoul in neighbouring South Korea.

Read more on RSF’s site…

During a diplomatic standoff that lasted almost five months, two American journalists from San Francisco-based Current TV were arrested, tried, pardoned, and released.

Charged with illegally crossing the border from China on March 17, they had been sentenced to 20 years of “reform through hard labor” after a closed-door trial, according to the official Korea Central News Agency.

Euna Lee, a video editor on one of her first reporting trips, and Laura Ling, an experienced reporter for Current TV, returned to the United States after former President Bill Clinton traveled to Pyongyang to escort them home following behind-the-scenes negotiations.

While in North Korea, Clinton met with leader Kim Jong Il, who granted the pardons. Although some press reports said Clinton had given an apology to Kim, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said no such apology had been offered. The journalists’ hard labor sentence was never carried out; they were held, separated from each other, in a combination guesthouse and government-run hotel outside Pyongyang. Although psychologically distressed, they said they were never physically abused.

Read more on CPJ’s site...

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