[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 85 (Tuesday, June 9, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H6317-H6318]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        U.S. JOURNALISTS ARE POLITICAL PRISONERS IN NORTH KOREA

  (Mr. POE of Texas asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, two American journalists, Laura Ling 
and Euna Lee, are reporters for Current TV. They were in China near the 
North Korean border making a film about the horrible sex trafficking 
between North Korea and China. The North Koreans claim they crossed the 
border illegally, so the Communist court sentenced them to 12 years at 
hard labor. That's some border enforcement policy.
  The conditions in these prison camps are harsh. Some reports say a 
quarter of the inmates die of starvation every year. The prisoners do 
backbreaking work in factories, coal mines and rice paddies. They're 
also used in experiments involving biological weapons. I guess the 
Communists didn't get the memo on human rights.
  Now we hear that the journalists may have actually been kidnapped and 
forcibly taken to North Korea. Anyway, they are being used as political 
prisoners to try to force this administration to give more concessions 
and American money to North Korea.
  North Korea is starving. The Communist regime is bankrupt. But they 
want to be able to sell nuclear technology to terrorist nations, so 
they're holding these journalists ransom until they get their way.

[[Page H6318]]

  Mr. Speaker, the journalists should go free, and the North Korean 
outlaws should take their place in that prison.
  And that's just the way it is.

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