N.Korea sentences S.Korean reporters to death

A North Korean court sentenced two South Korean journalists and their publishers to death for “seriously insulting the dignity” of the country by reviewing and interviewing the British authors of a book about life in the North, its state media said Thursday.

The book in English titled North Korea Confidential was authored by James Pearson, a Seoul-based correspondent for Reuters, and Daniel Tudor, a former correspondent in South Korea for the Economist.

The book depicts a growing market economy where ordinary North Koreans enjoy access to South Korean music and TV dramas, fashion and smuggled Chinese and American films.

The Korean-language edition, published earlier this month with the title translated as Capitalist Republic of Korea, was reviewed by South Korea’s Dong-A Ilbo and Chosun Ilbo newspapers.

A spokesman for North Korea’s Central Court said in a statement that the book “viciously slandered the reality of the DPRK.” The South Korean journalists who reviewed the book “committed a hideous crime of seriously insulting the dignity of the DPRK with the use of dishonest contents,” the spokesman said.

The Central Court has ordered the execution of the journalists, Son Hyo-rim of the Dong-A Ilbo and Yang Ji-ho of the Chosun Ilbo, and the publishers of the newspapers. It also demanded the South Korean government investigate their crimes and punish them.