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Detained and interrogated for 10 hours in North Korea
- user982 10y ago10 hours of questioning? What an authoritarian monstrosity of a state. Civilized countries limit their overreaching interrogations-cum-intimidations of journalists to 9 hours.[0] How brave of the BBC to report dispassionately on this alien, backwards nation.[1] [0]: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-23782782 http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-23782782 [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pnt_uT5YzQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pnt_uT5YzQ
- dmix 10y agoI'm curious if the decision to detain him came from the very top. Additionally if it was actually because of the nuclear bomb question he asked the student in the video.
- jkot 10y ago> I was told that my reporting had insulted the Korean people, and that I needed to admit my mistakes. They produced copies of three articles that had been published on the BBC website, as I reported on the visit of the Nobel laureates. Hate speech is punishable even in UK.
- Kristine1975 10y agoYes, but using "bark" as a synonym for "shout" doesn't count as hate speech.
- jkot 10y agoIt has negative connotation. People were charged (and jailed) for less. Plus he wrote a bit more.
- BasDirks 10y agoIt has a negative connotation so it is hate speech? I think not. [edited: used to read hate crime, wasn't paying attention]
- ryanlol 10y agoYou're the first one to bring up hate crimes here. Edit: downvotes? Maybe you should look up UK hate speech laws before deciding that violating them constitutes as hate crime.
- throwaway7767 10y agoYou're responding in a thread that started by someone claiming this was hate speech, and your response to one of the child posters is that "You're the first one to bring up hate crimes here". I imagine this is the reason for the completely warranted downvotes. Context matters, and you're just diverting the discussion without adding anything.
- ryanlol 10y agohate speech=/=hate crimes UK has had, and still does have very aggressive legislation to combat "hate speech" and offensive speech in general. It's not very far fetched that such a statement could have been in violation of said laws, but that certainly wouldn't make it a hate crime. While jkots wording could have been better, there's still a very important distinction here.
- maze-le 10y ago>People were charged (and jailed) The question is: Where? In the UK, or in NK? Also: if something is legal doesn't make it legitimate.
- tnuc 10y agoIt very well could, the UK has some very interesting laws. Just imagine if he had used the word 'bomb'.
- kbart 10y agoIn Germany, you can go to prison for up to 3 years[1] for insulting a head of state, organs or representatives of foreign states. 1. http://en.alalam.ir/news/1819424 http://en.alalam.ir/news/1819424
- ryanlol 10y agoAnd in the UK it was illegal to insult people until 2014 http://reformsection5.org.uk/ http://reformsection5.org.uk/
- venomsnake 10y agoAnd makes you wonder if one will prefer NK way to UK libel laws.
- nxzero 10y agoIssue is he thought that because he was a reporter that he was not at risk, which was foolish. Anyone entering North Korea should realize that there is the very real chance that they may be held against their will, be killed, etc. Knowing this, only then should someone decide if it makes sense to visit.
- crispyambulance 10y agoThe point of the detainment was to get "an apology" for the published articles for the purpose of making an example of the journalist for other news agencies and also for internal audiences who may have read the articles. These articles (and the "follow-up" detainment article) provided a valuable glimpse into a closed society. I am confident Mr Wingfield-Hayes is a responsible adult who can make his own decisions about risk.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- erikb 10y agoYeah it's the opposite right? As a reporter I would be _more_ scared to go to such a country, not less.
- jrcii 10y agoI was detained and interrogated for 12 hours in Congo, accused of being a spy for the CIA. The whole thing was very scary.
- roel_v 10y agoC'mon man, you can't just dangle that in front of us and then not tell the story.
- jrcii 10y agoI was on a flight to Goma which had in years past experienced some dangerous rebel activity. I studied the region intensely before going there and understood that the situation was currently safe, but sitting next to a local on the plane decided to ask him. He didn't understand my pronunciation of the rebel leader and group names (for example, Ntaganda) so I wrote them in my notebook, upon seeing them in writing he immediately understood and assured me they were not active. Later in the conversation we were discussing Hawaii, which he didn't know by name. I drew a small map of it in my notebook to see if he understood by the look of the islands since they're pretty distinctive. After landing I'm checking in and the customs guy asks for some baloney authorization papers that no one at the embassy or capital ever mentioned. When I said I didn't have them he said, "Give me $200." I said no, he said it again. I explained I was on a strict budget and even if I did have the money I wouldn't give it to him. He told his goons to search all my bags. One of his guys opens my notebook full of the names of all the rebel generals and groups in Congo accompanied by map sketches. Mind you these people have no concept of Wikipedia. I was transferred around after being detained. The first question was, "What is your relationship with General Nkunda?" (an infamous war criminal). Of course the more innocent I made myself appear, the more honed my spycraft appeared to be. After the initial interrogation I was forced into the back of an SUV with giant people on both sides of me and they refused to say where we were going. I was sure I was going to be shot and put in a ditch or a prison. After asking 100x they said we were going to the airport. We came to a fork in the road, the airport was right, they turned left. That was one of the scariest moments in my life. Fortunately we were going to the airport, but to my hotel first to get my things, I was deported back to the capital for a second round of interrogation. After that I got a professional translator who was probably one of a dozen people who spoke English well enough in the country to understand what happened. The Minister of the Interior apologized and offered to give me armed escorts to off-limit areas in apology, which I refused and can only imagine was another attempt to see if I was a spy. TL;DR I'm owed a favor by Democratic Republic of Congo's Minister of the Interior. And now I remember the whole incident was 20 hours, not 12.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Spooky23 10y agoLesson: Don't go to North Korea.
- april1stislame 10y agoI saw here on HN the other day a guy in the USA who's detained for 7 moths without charge. Lesson: Don't go to, or stay in, the USA.
- jbmorgado 10y agoAre you not allowed, as a visitor to the USA to go and report about any place inside the USA were any other citizen of the USA is allowed to go and to report about?
- april1stislame 10y agoI don't know. You tell me, as you seem to be so well informed and ready to jump in the defense of the USA. Are you not allowed, as a visitor to NK to go and report about any place inside NK were any other citizen of NK is allowed to go and to report about?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Thriptic 10y agoNo, you are not, as evidenced by the presence of escorts throughout your stay and the search of all of your digital media upon entry and exit of the country.
- april1stislame 10y agoIs that evidence that NK journalists don't get the same treatment as foreign journalists? How so?
- EliRivers 10y ago
- kurren 10y agoSounds like the US for the wrong nationality/demographic, to me...
- jbmorgado 10y agoSincerely, people should just stop going there. Historically it is extremely difficult for a real regimen change towards democracy to be forced from the outside. And by going there we are only giving them credit, since they show what they choose to show that does not correspond to the reality of the country. Just close the contact, close the product transactions, let them (the party) to rot for a while. The people will suffer a bit more for a time, but it could be the trigger to have the people finally rebel against the regimen.
- mikeash 10y agoTourists also give them money. It's an extremely poor country with few sources of foreign currency. Tourism is a good chunk of that, and the proceeds likely go towards building more missiles and nuclear warheads, not anything good.
- dominotw 10y ago>Tourism is a good chunk of that, and the proceeds likely go towards building more missiles and nuclear warheads, not anything good. Most tourists are from friendly regimes like china, south asian countries. These people don't get detained because they have the common sense to no break their laws. There is no way 1500 western tourists are funding their nuclear arms .
- mikeash 10y agoSure, what I said applies to all tourists. The vast majority of American visitors aren't getting detained either, of course. Just observe how it makes the news when they do; if it happened all the time it wouldn't be newsworthy.
- dominotw 10y ago> Sincerely, people should just stop going there. You should watch the TV series 'locked up abroad' all kinds of people get locked up in all kinds of countries. People who got locked up in North Korea were breaking their laws and the country is within their right to punish them. Kenneth Bae - evangelism Lings - Illegal entry/crossing/, Illegal filming. .... Don't go to a foreign country and break their laws.
- saiya-jin 10y agoI, as anybody here have no sympathy for any oppressive regimes, and NK one is extreme out of extremes. that said, journalist detained is an idiot. either completely incompetent and uninformed on what it actually means visiting such a regime (hard to believe), or just plain old ignorant bloated ego "I am above". from his own words on description of situation, I am not surprised he was detained, rather that he got out so easily from such a place.
- pm90 10y agoAgreed. Like someone else said in the comments, this person is simply an attention seeker. It almost seems like he went to NK, didn't find any newsworthy stories and had to invent one to justify the trip. Not very good journalism.
- aplummer 10y agoSurely this is sarcasm
- djaychela 10y agoI think you might need to do a bit more research on Rupert Wingfield-Hayes... he's neither an idiot, nor an attention seeker - indeed from the reports I've seen him do from various undesirable places on BBC News over the years, it appears he's a very competent journalist and not one who's afraid to be in a dangerous place to get a story out. Did you actually read the comments that the DPRK officials made about his statements? Typical frame-up things, intentionally taking offence where none in particular was meant. There are plenty of things that RW-H could have said since being released which he appears not to have done. The naivety of some of the comments on this thread is baffling to me. North Korea isn't a problem which is just going to go away. It's far more stable than the Syrian civil war, and that's been going on for years. NK could continue indefinitely by doing what it's doing.
- saiya-jin 10y agoif you write a rather insulting article about half of the countries in this world (probably most/all muslim ones, and all non-democratic ones), you can expect they might hit back when you visit again. surprise surprise - they did, and in rather standard (and non-violent) way for these regimes. it's a ridiculous place, nobody argues about that. most folks have common sense and don't poke a lion in the eye with the stick in his own territory. would you? probably not. then why should I have any sympathy for this guy? he did exactly that, and his surprise when they detained him just shows what I've written - ignorance. would you go to Iran and write before an article in BBC saying how their officers are idiots barking around? (i loved visiting that place, but common sense is needed, and this guy didn't show much).
- erikb 10y agoThis is just attention seeking, not a real article. I have never worked as a journalist but even I know: When you are in North Korea, you don't write articles about North Korea. And if you have written western style articles about North Korea in the past you don't ever go there. Everything else can only be considered on purpose. There is no harm done here. I'm surprised that with his attitude they only kept him for 10 hours.
- ethbro 10y ago> I have never worked as a journalist but even I know Curious, and how would you "know"?
- garrettgrimsley 10y agoIt can be as simple as reading the WikiTravel article about the country. Doing the slightest amount of cursory research beforehand will clue you in. The journalist has been there before, so it is safe to assume he is in the know. It seems like resisting the urge to write the most trite garbage imaginable was too much for him. The articles he wrote have been written countless times before, so what was the value in his visit?
- erikb 10y agoMostly life experience, I would say. Through experience one knows that managing opinions of other people is part of keeping one's position in society (e.g. being the big boss). One also experiences that these opinions others hold are based on the messages (or news) they receive. Therefore controlling the press is important to maintain power. Therefore nothing is more pain in the ass to a government than the reporters of differently typed governments. Especially reporterts from directly declared enemies and from governments that are much better at controlling the news than oneself. Think about the guy in the office who exploits people all the time but for some reason the majority always seems to like him. Now think about him badmouthing you in front of you and others. Wouldn't you feel forced to react somehow?
- sandworm101 10y agoWhile no doubt terrifying, the actual procedures and interrogation methods here are little different than in western nations. US agents are free to grab people as the leave the country. And 10 hours is nothing. A US court won't think anything of a detention lasting less than 24 hours. Even the questioning seems to follow standard law enforcement procedure, with teams of age-diverse interrogators being rotated in and out periodically. So while I have great respect for Rupert Wingfield-Hayes and will continue to do so, he should talk to those who have been detained at other airports on similar accusations. North Korea surely has a more dramatic penal system, a deadly one. But as this reporter feared the labour camp, those at US airports faced with FBI agents accusing them of terrorism see Gitmo and the black sites.
- unwind 10y agoHuh? Are you not aware that the US has capital punishment as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_Unit...? Or did you mean that the NK one is "more" deadly?
- sandworm101 10y agoThe chances of death on any given day in US detention are small in comparison to detention in North Korea. A person would probably last longer on US death row (10+ years) than in a NK labor camp. So despite the US love of the death penalty, it;s the far less deadly.
- garrettgrimsley 10y agoWhile that may be the case for citizens of the DPRK the story it is certainly not true for Americans who visit. They are charged and arrested for their crimes, sentenced to a decade or more in prison, and then released and deported within a year or two. It's a story that we've seen play out many times: Kenneth Bae, Matthew Todd Miller, Laura Ling, Euna Lee, Merrill Newman, etc. Nothing new nor interesting, must be a slow news day.
- 10y ago
- ck2 10y agoWTF does the BBC endanger their reporters by publishing anything while they are in such an incredibly dangerous country?
- unlinker 10y agoPure Gonzo journalism
- SubZero 10y agoI would like to point out the figurative middle finger the BBC is giving to NK. The offensive material that they pointed to are still published on the BBC website, even though the apology stated that they'd be taken down.