2 Americans detained in North Korea seek US help

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By ERIC TALMADGE

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — Two American tourists charged with "anti-state" crimes in North Korea said Friday they expect to be tried soon and pleaded for help from the U.S. government to secure their release from what they say could be long prison terms.

In their first appearance since being detained more than three months ago, Matthew Todd Miller and Jeffrey Edward Fowle told a local AP Television News crew that they were in good health and were being treated well. They also said they were allowed to take daily walks.
The brief meeting was conducted under the condition that the specific location not be disclosed.

Fowle said he fears his situation will get much worse once he goes on trial.

"The horizon for me is pretty dark," he said. "I don't know what the worst-case scenario would be, but I need help to extricate myself from this situation. I ask the government for help in that regards."

FULL story at link.



In this image taken from video, U.S. citizen Matthew Todd Miller speaks at an undisclosed location in North Korea Friday, Aug. 1, 2014. Two Americans, Miller and Jeffrey Edward Fowle, charged with {201c}anti-state{201d} crimes in North Korea say in a video that they expect to be tried soon and possibly receive long prison terms, and appeal for help from the U.S. government. They made the comments in the video shot by a local AP Television News crew. The crew was taken to a location to meet the detained Americans after repeated requests to North Korean authorities to see them. (AP Photo/APTN)


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140801/as--nkorea-americans_detained-1017305c77.html

[7962]

1. Why the hell do people keep going to that shithole????

[jwirr]

3. That is what I was thinking. It isn't as if we do not know what the country is like.

[defacto7]

5. That's the billion dollar question.

Evangelize? or the beautiful hotels?

[oldandhappy]

4. What on earth were they doing there?

I am sorry for their plight, and I think they made some really ridiculous decisions to go there.

[LuckyLib]

6. We have to save these folks from their own stupidity.

Passport restriction would keep idiots from going. Too bad we can't do it. Now the taxpayer has to pay folks to work to get them out.

[mackerel]

7. I'm sorry for their plight but I don't understand why they are asking for help now.

The state department does not recommend Americans go there. Travel agents should do the same. Most people won't go there which makes me suspect that they are going to spread the good word.

[Populist_Prole]

9. My first thought as well, and I too feel bad for them

I figured they were evangelical christian missionaries so much in the thrall of their beliefs they thought they both "had" to go or believed they would be protected from harm by what they think is some inherent justice/righteousness of it all.

[TwilightGardener]

8. Idiots.

[blackspade]

10. Why are Americans going to North Korea?

That is just fucking stupid.

[leftyladyfrommo]

11. I'm with you guys. Why do any Americans go there?

I don't get it. I feel the same way about women going to some of the middle eastern countries or Saudi. Why on earth would you even want to go to those places?

[Earth_First]

12. What's the government going to do?

Send in Rodman from some basketball diplomacy...

...plus a few cases of booze some dvd's and some pornographic magazines and the situation is difused.

Case closed.

[JI7]

13. people go there because they are curious

yes, they know many things about it and the warnings but there is something about actually being there and seeing for yourself how things are in different places.

[marble falls]

14. One of then appears to have left a Bible hidden in a bath room at a sailors club. How did he not ...

think such a thing couldn't become an uncomfortable stay.

[freshwest]

15. LINK: North Korea says the two committed hostile acts which violated their status as tourists:

The article says it has not specified what was illegal, but I've read about the laws in North Korea. It's pretty obvious what they did:

Fowle arrived in North Korea on April 29. He is suspected of leaving a Bible in a nightclub in the northern port city of Chongjin, but a spokesman for Fowle's family said the 56-year-old from Miamisburg, Ohio, was not on a mission for his church.

Nightclubs and Bibles? And left his wife and three children for a trip to a county we don't even have an embassy in? Something's off.

North Korea has a state religion. They follow Kim, and any person who doesn't, goes to prison. That is the law broken. To us that stinks, not so much to them. The oppression is carried out by those employed to do it.

At the link there are two other instances of missionaries getting in trouble. One apologized and was sent home to Australia. The other, an American, is serving a sentence of 15 years hard labor but the link doesn't say if he was 'really' prosyletizing or not. Maybe he was and I have no problem with any person exercising that right, but it's not a 'right' in NK.

Now as to Miller:

North Korea's state-run media have said the 24-year-old entered the country April 10 with a tourist visa, but tore it up at the airport and shouted that he wanted to seek asylum. A large number of Western tourists visited Pyongyang in April to run in the annual Pyongyang Marathon or attend related events. Miller came at that time, but tour organizers say he was not planning to join the marathon...

Neighbor Carol Stewart said Miller first traveled to South Korea about four years ago to visit a brother stationed there with the U.S. Air Force. He found work teaching English and learned Korean, Stewart said in a July 1 interview. She has since declined to comment out of respect for his parents' wishes.

"He liked it a lot, and he's been there ever since," said Stewart, describing Miller as the shy one of the four brothers...

I don't see how a person with family in the armed forces in South Korea doesn't know that the two nations are officially at war, with only a truce. I don't necessarily believe what the NK state run media had to say, but Miller was likely suspect from the moment he got into the country, despite being able to speak Korean.

Two people with the wherewithal to be tourists in a country whose leader is this century's version of Krushchev's 'we will bury you' style. A sense of entitlement that says they should get to go anywhere and do whatever they please won't always cut it. I'm sorry that NK is not the USA where such things are tolerated. I feel more grateful to live here after reading stuff like this...

Just sayin'