Prisoner Advocate Slams Ling/Lee Media Attention
As speculation intensifies that Pres. Barack Obama will dispatch Gov. Bill Richardson to North Korea to negotiate the release of imprisoned journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling, the coordinator of a Santa Fe-based prisoner rights organization is criticizing the media attention given to what she considers the reporters’ “short” sentences.
“I find it very ironic that so many people have expressed dismay at the 12-year sentences that two women reporters who have been convicted by North Korea have gotten,” Coalition for Prisoner Rights Coordinator Mara Taub tells SFR. “I mean, that is a SHORT sentence in the United States.”
Lee and Ling were found guilty of illegally breaching the North Korean border with China. The North Korean Central Court sentenced the two Current TV journalists on Monday to 12 years in a labor camp, a fate that some believe is nothing short of fatal. Nevertheless, Taub says it’s hypocritical for the US media to focus on this case while ignoring problems with the domestic prison system.
“There are all kinds of people who, for convictions for non-violent crimes, are doing way more than 12 years,” Taub says. “So, why do we only care about whathappens far away? Why don’t we care what’s happening right here? That goes not only for length of sentence, but also prison conditions and also torture.”
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June 11th, 2009 at 10:56 am
I completely agree. We have many men and women sitting behind the bars of prisons across this country with 20, 30 year sentences or life and now in NM life without the possibility of parole. Many of these non violent offenders, such as those in prison in California under the three strikes law. It always amazes me that our criminal justice system is so screwed up, yet we take the upper hand to try and fix other countries systems before looking at our own. We have over 130 men and women exonerated from death row int his country, not to mention the hundreds who have been exonerated on non capital offenses. The media would be doing the citizens more good if they would reveal what goes on in our own backyard, instead of thousands of miles away.