#euna lee

There were 11 American hostages released from North Korea during the Obama administration:

Euna Lee

Laura Ling

Robert Park

Aijalon Gomes

Eddie Yong Su Jun

Merrill Newman

Jeffrey Fowle

Kenneth Bae

Matthew Miller

Sandra Suh

*This was written about two weeks before the current news about someone crossing the North Korean border broke.* Awhile back, I watched a Nat Geo documentary about North Korea, where the journalist was Lisa Ling. I found the documentary interesting. I didn’t know that she and her sister had written a book about the time that Laura spent in captivity. I was trying to find something to read to put…

by Woogeon Kim | Heights Editor

Published: Monday, February 21, 2011

Euna Lee, an American journalist and former detainee in North Korea, shared her experience with the Boston College community last Thursday.

In March 2009, Lee, along with fellow journalist Laura Ling, was arrested at the North Korea-China border and detained in North Korea for 140 days under charges of illegally entering the country. Lee and Ling were only pardoned by the North Korean government after former U.S. President Bill Clinton paid a visit to the country on their behalf.

This was Lee's first visit to a college campus on the East Coast to give a talk on her experience. The event drew a crowd of around 200 people and was sponsored by the UGBC, the Korean Student Association, Asian Caucus, and Asian Christian Fellowship and hosted by Hearts 4 North Korea.

Lee deliberately avoided talking about the politics of the highly charged situation surrounding North Korea.

"There might be some of you who are here tonight to hear what happened to me in North Korea, but I am here to talk about something of greater importance than my 140 days in North Korea," she said.

Instead, she said that she wanted to talk about "the people and their struggles." This was appropriate in the sense that this event was occurring as part of Global Justice Week, which featured events such as a Global Justice Fair and screenings of the documentaries Dreaming Big and 9500 Liberty.

Commenting on the significance of the event for students, Samuel Cho co-director of H4NK and LSOE '13 said, "It was truly an honor to hear Euna Lee share part of her testimony with us. It is my hope that students will be inspired, empowered, and take action on behalf of her courage and her heart for the marginalized people of North Korea."

Lee made it clear through the content of her speech that she holds no bitterness toward the North Korean people. Instead, she adopted a positive attitude toward the situation, especially in light of her capture less than two years ago.

Lee avoided the typical combative stance and instead decided to focus on the fundamental global deficit of compassion. "As Americans, we sometimes act like we are better than others, but that's not it at all," Lee said.

Sky News speaks with Park Sokeel of Liberty in North Korea regarding Pyongyang’s plans to put Korean-American tour operator Kenneth Bae on trial because he “committed crimes” supposedly aimed at toppling the North Korean regime. Bae was arrested by North Korean authorities in December after he entered the country via the northeastern border city of Rason to lead a tour.

If a North Korean “court” finds Bae guilty of crimes against the state, might the United States launch a high-level diplomatic effort to obtain his freedom? Press outlets are already drawing parallels between his case and that of American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee. Back in 2009, Pyongyang sentenced Ling and Lee to 12 years hard labor after they unknowingly crossed the border from China into North Korea. Former president Bill Clinton subsequently traveled to Pyongyang to apologize on their behalf and secured their release.

Perhaps a similar series of events will play out in the case of Bae. But it’s worth noting that Ling and Lee had a couple of considerable advantages in their favor. Ling is the younger sister of prominent TV journalist Lisa Ling, providing her with the means to drum up publicity about her predicament. More importantly, Ling and Lee were employees of Current TV, which was co-founded by former vice president Al Gore. Gore personally reached out to Clinton and asked him to travel to Pyongyang.

Bae’s case may have more in common with that of Aijalon Gomes, an American who taught English at a middle school in Gyeonggi province. For apparently naive evangelical reasons, Gomes entered North Korea from China in 2010 and was arrested and sentenced to a labor camp. Like Bae, Gomes had no special media connections to draw on. Nonetheless, former president Jimmy Carter traveled to Pyongyang later that year and was able to bring him back to the U.S.

Still, securing Bae’s release could prove to be trickier than either of those earlier cases. North Korea’s relations with the U.S. are arguably worse than they were in 2009 or 2010. Since that time, Pyongyang has broken off a nuclear-freeze-for-food-aid deal it had reached with Washington; triggered expanded United Nations sanctions by launching a satellite and conducting its third nuclear test; and threatened earlier this month to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the U.S. (albeit one that no one took seriously). Now more than ever, Washington will be leery of taking any actions that could be construed as rewarding bad behavior.

I’ve heard people say that online petitions don’t serve any purpose, and it’s true that there may be some of them that don’t gather steam. But sometimes, those signatures, gathered one at a time, are enough to bring attention to an issue or force those in power to act.

Care2, an online petition site, is the host of many successful petitions. In March 2009, when journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee were imprisoned in North Korea and sentenced to 12 years of hard labor, a petition was spread to bring awareness to their matter. Friends and family together raised enough awareness through petitions, which were signed by nearly 90,000 people. Ling and Lee’s situation gained national attention, and kept that attention from the media due to these petitions. After enough pressure on North Korea to free the journalists, former President Bill Clinton traveled to North Korea, negotiating the release of the two prisoners. Below you can find a thank you letter from Laura Ling sending her thanks to the many petitioners responsible for her and her colleague’s freedom.

Dear Friends,

While in detention in North Korea, isolated and scared, one of the things that gave me strength and sustained my faith was hearing about the groundswell of support for Euna and me. You were a part of this incredible movement and for that I will be forever thankful.

Through the letters that I was able to receive, I learned about the many beautiful vigils, the LauraandEuna.com website, the petition, the Facebook group, and all the other grassroots efforts to bring us home. I am deeply humbled.

In times of extreme darkness and depression, I thought of all of the people, united together, sending us messages of love and hope. I envisioned the light of the candles at the vigils and it brightened my soul.

I would not be here today, home and free, re-united with my family (my sister is actually asleep on the couch right by my side), if not for the support from so many extraordinary people. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart. Words cannot adequately express my profound gratitude.

While my experience was the most challenging time of my life, I do believe that something beautiful came out of it, and that is the way in which so many people united around a cause for hope and peace.

I’d like to share with you an entry from my journal that I kept during my time in captivity:

Thursday, June 11, 2009 Day 87, 3:00 PM: “I’ve been so overwhelmed and touched by the outpouring of support from so many people. Loved ones, friends, people I haven’t been in contact with in ages, and even total strangers. It makes you have faith in humanity. I hope that I would be as good of a friend or human to someone else in a similar situation.”

Euna and I are two of the lucky ones whose story of captivity resulted in a happy ending. But there are so many journalists imprisoned around the world whose fate is still undecided. It is my sincere hope that the energy ignited around bringing us home will be harnessed into raising awareness around these fellow journalists and their struggle for freedom.

With all my love and gratitude,

Laura

Information online travels fast, and it has the potential to go viral and attract a lot of attention or catch the eye or ear of someone in power. Fortunately for teenagers, we grew up in an age of technology, so we are often gifted with a knack for using the Internet to our advantage. Online communities are growing, and there is a well- developed community for almost every issue or concern.

So if you have a passion, a great way to gain support for your cause and make change in your community or in your world is to start an online petition! Petitions make people aware of important issues. If your cause is relevant, you will often gain support, which can put pressure on governments, corporations, organizations, and authoritative figures. Successful petitions are those that gain so much support that the driving motive behind the petition forces pressure on targeted entities. While you can certainly start a petition on paper, online petitions have the benefit of spreading fast, being easily shared, and being able to reach people who care about the issues that matter to you but who may be geographically diverse and hard to reach with a paper petition. Best of all, they are easy to start and spread on your own!

If you don’t feel motivated to create an online petition, why not sign and share one that already exists? Part of making an impact on the world is supporting other people who want to make an impact. Signing and sharing a petition is an easy way to encourage someone else while having a direct, positive impact on their chance of influencing change. There are thousands of petitions on Change.org right now, so there’s sure to be something to which you feel it’s important to add your voice. It has over 10 million members and gets hundreds of new petitions every day. Browsing petitions is also an easy way to learn about some things you may have known nothing about. Some that I like and have signed are:

Petitioning Jamba Juice to stop them from using Styrofoam cups

Petitioning Dunkin’ Donuts to stop them from using Styrofoam cups

Petitioning Louisiana to teach science in their public school science classes

Petitioning the Girl Scouts to make their cookies “Rain Forest Safe”