Tim Peters, a missionary in Seoul who oversees aid work in northeast China, told The Los Angeles Times that Ling and Lee's actions were irresponsible and that their arrest earlier this year had made operations to help defectors even more difficult.
Amid the criticism, the two journalists who work for Current TV broke their silence this week to detail the circumstances of their arrest and draw attention to the plight of North Korean defectors.
Recounting their arrest, they explained that when they arrived at the frozen Tumen River – a well-used human trafficking route – at 5 am on March 17, their guide, a Korean Chinese man who often worked for foreign journalists, "beckoned" them to follow him across the river to the North Korean side. There he pointed to a village where North Koreans waited in safe houses to be smuggled into China.
Ling and Lee say they were not on North Korean soil for more than a minute before they quickly decided to turn back. It was then that they saw two North Korean soldiers running toward them.
"We were firmly back inside China when the soldiers apprehended us," they recalled.
After they were detained, the journalists destroyed any evidence they had of their work by swallowing notes and damaging videotapes. They had also taken "extreme caution" during their interviews to ensure that the defectors and their locations were not identifiable. They reminded readers that they were in China to report on the grim story of North Koreans who flee poverty and repression in their country only to find themselves in the online sex industry or forced into marriage.
Part of the reason they followed the guide across the river, they explained, was because they saw him as cautious and responsible and someone who was "as concerned as we were about protecting our interview subjects and not taking unnecessary risks".
The guide was introduced to them by the Rev Chun Ki-won, who has helped smuggle hundreds of North Koreans out of China.
