detained and interrogated

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Detained and interrogated for 10hours in North Korea

The BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes

was last week expelled from North

Korea and forced to apologise for

his reporting. He was held

incommunicado for 10 hours and

interrogated. Here he gives his first

account of what happened.

REUTERS

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After a week in North Korea I was more

than ready to go home. The trip, to cover

a visit to Pyongyang by a delegation of

three Nobel laureates, had been

exhausting and stressful.

I couldn't move anywhere in Pyongyang

without a team of five minders following my every step. At night

the BBC team was confined to an overheated villa in a guarded

compound. We'd fallen out with pretty much everyone. Our

North Korean minders were now openly hostile.

We were all looking forward to a cold beer and a good night's

sleep in Beijing.

For some reason the female immigration officer at Pyongyang

airport was taking a very long time with my passport. By the

time she finally stamped it everyone else had cleared security

and gone to the gate. It felt odd, but I wasn't immediately

alarmed.

Then a North Korean border guard called me over - in his hand,

my digital recorder.

"We need to check this," he said pointing down a corridor.

In a back room another border guard was trying to open the files

from my recorder on a laptop computer.

"What is the problem?" I asked. "There's nothing on that card."

"Just wait," he responded.

"I can't wait," I said. "I have to get on my flight to Beijing."

"The flight is already gone," the border guard said looking

straight at me. "You will not be going to Beijing."

Now my sense of alarm was rising fast.

"My God," I thought. "This is real. My flight is leaving and I am

being left behind in North Korea!"

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Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, Matthew Goddard and Maria Byrne in North Korea

Actually I wasn't. At that moment my colleagues Maria Byrne

and Matthew Goddard were refusing to board the plane,

shouting at the North Korean guards who were trying to push

them on board.

But I knew none of this. I felt very alone.

Two of our old minders now appeared at the door.

"We are taking you to meet with the relevant organs," they

proclaimed. "All will become clear."

I was marched to a waiting car and put in the back, a minder on

either side.

As we drove through the almost empty streets of Pyongyangno-one spoke. Looking at the drab concrete apartment blocks, I

contemplated my situation. Even in North Korea you don't

detain a visiting journalist unless it has been approved from

high up. I thought about American college student Otto

Warmbier, sentenced to 15 years' hard labour for stealing a

propaganda banner from his Pyongyang hotel. Would I be the

next to be paraded on state TV?


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Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in the interrogation room - image provided by North

Korea

The car pulled into the driveway of an old grey hotel. I was

taken into a conference room and told to sit. Huge portraits of

Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il looked down from the far wall.

A group of officials in dark Mao suits walked in and sat

opposite. The older one spoke first.

"Mr Rupert," he said, "this meeting can be over quickly andsimply, it will depend on your attitude."

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.

Part one: North Korea inches open its doors

Part two: The limits of small talk in Pyongyang

Part three: Searching for self-reliance and 'real people'

"Do you think Korean people are ugly?" the older man asked.

"No," I answered.

"Do you think Korean people have voices like dogs?"


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"No," I answered again.

"Then why do you write these things?!" he shouted.

I was confused. What could they mean? One of the articles was

presented to me, the offending passage circled in black markerpen:

"The grim-faced customs officer is wearing one of those

slightly ridiculous oversized military caps that they were so fond

of in the Soviet Union. It makes the slightly built North Korean

in his baggy uniform comically top heavy. "Open," he grunts,

pointing at my mobile phone. I dutifully punch in the passcode.

He grabs it back and goes immediately to photos. He scrolls

through pictures of my children skiing, Japanese cherry

blossom, the Hong Kong skyline. Apparently satisfied he turns

to my suitcase. "Books?" he barks . No, no books. "Movies?"

No, no movies. I am sent off to another desk where a much

less gruff lady is already looking through my laptop."

"Are they serious?" I thought. They had taken "grim-faced" to

mean "ugly", and the use of the word "barks" as an indication

that I thought they sounded like dogs.

The two men who led the interrogation

"It doesn't mean what you think it means." I protested.


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The older man squinted.

"I have studied English literature," he said. "Do you think I do

not understand what these expressions mean?

For two hours they demanded I confess my mistakes. Finallythe older man got up to leave.

"It is clear that your attitude is going to make this difficult," he

said. "We have no choice but to carry out a full investigation."

Now a younger man took charge.

"Do you know who I am?" he asked.

"No," I answered.

"I am from the judicial authorities. I am the one who investigated

the case of Kenneth Bae, and now I am going to investigate

you.

An activist in Seoul holds a placard calling for the release of Kenneth Bae,

February 2014

The pit of my stomach turned cold. Kenneth Bae is a Korean

American who was sentenced to 15 years' hard labour by

Pyongyang in 2013.

AFP


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They began going through my articles word by word - finding

offence in almost every one. But the words were not important;

they were ammunition to throw at me, to force me to confess.

"We can sit here all night," I said. "I am signing nothing."

"We have plenty of time," the young man shot back. "This can

take a night, a day, a week or a month. The choice is yours."

Hour after hour they repeated the accusations. The pace was

relentless. Every two hours they took a break and another team

stepped in. They began to use the term "serious crime".

"What crime?" I asked.

"Defamation of the Korean people and nation," the interrogator

said.

Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in North Korea

In one of the video reports filed from Pyongyang before he was

detained, Rupert Wingfield-Hayes is accused by North Korean

authorities of not showing respect for the country's leader.

A rare look inside North Korea's Kim Il-sung University


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By now the interrogation had been going for more than fivehours. Unknown to me, at another hotel in Pyongyang the alarm

was finally being raised.

A second BBC team, led by Asia bureau editor Jo Floto, was in

Pyongyang covering the North Korean Workers' Party

Congress. They'd been phoned by colleagues in Beijing who

told them my team had never made it to China. Jo now started

to try to find us. He got his minder to call the foreign ministry,but they had no idea where we were. It took another two hours

for the minder to find out where I was being held.

In the interrogation room they now

produced a new series of printouts,

articles published by South Korean

media.

"Have you seen what the South Koreanmedia are saying about your reports?"

the young interrogator demanded.

"No," I answered.

"That they show everything the DPRK

government says is a lie!!"

He glared at me.

I asked to go to the

toilet - each time I

went, two minders

were sent with me,one stood at the next

urinal, the other

directly behind me

Rupert Wingfield-Hayes


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"Did you meet with South Korean media before you came to

Pyongyang?" he asked. "Did you collude to orchestrate a

campaign of anti-DPRK propaganda?"

I thought: "This is how a show trial is built."

At about 1:30 am I asked to go to the toilet. Each time I went,

two minders were sent with me. One stood at the next urinal,

the other directly behind me.

This time, as I came out, one of our old minders, Mr Oh,

emerged from another room.

"I think your boss is coming here now," he said.

I didn't know whether to believe him, but Jo was on his way. I

found out later that as he arrived at the hotel, his foreign

ministry minder had turned and said: "Mr Floto, please

remember that we have no control over the people we are about

to meet."

An hour later, Jo was brought into the room where I was being

held. I felt a wave of relief, but he looked worried. He still had no

idea where they had taken Maria and Matthew. Nothing had

been heard from them. Then he pointed at the young

interrogator.

"He does not seem to care about the damage detaining you will

do to North Korea's image," he said. "He seems quite prepared

to put you on trial."

We needed to get this over quickly, and to do so I needed to

make an act of contrition.

We agreed that I would write a short letter "apologising for the

offence my articles had caused". We agreed it would be a

written statement and would not be published.


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This image of of Rupert Wingfield-Hayes and Jo Floto was provided by North

Korea


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But within minutes the interrogator went back on his word.

"To show your sincerity stand up and read it out loud," he said

handing me the sheet of paper.

In the corner a man with a video camera was filming.

I refused.

Finally at 03:30 I was released and we were taken to meet

Maria and Matthew. They were being held at another

guesthouse in the hills outside Pyongyang. It was now more

than 10 hours since I had disappeared at the airport and they


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were frantic with worry.

The following day we were allowed to move to the Yanggakdo

hotel, a huge tower on an island in the Taedong River. All the

international media were being housed there, so we felt much

safer. But for two more days we were refused permission toleave North Korea.

Rupert Wingfield-Hayes after his interrogation and the announcement that he

would be expelled

Then suddenly on Monday 8 May, just as we were preparing to

drive to the airport, the government announced I was being

expelled.

Why did they choose to detain and expel me? My best guess is

that someone high up decided my reporting had endangered

the success of the Nobel laureate's visit. Pyongyang yearns forrecognition. Their trip was of great importance to the

government. The three Nobel laureates were shown the very

best of the country. They met its brightest students. Our

coverage was a threat to that plan, and an example needed to

be made.

Ironically, by doing so they gave me a rare glimpse inside the

dark heart of the North Korean state. I spent only 10 hours indetention. But in that time I got to see just how easy it is for


12 of 20 20 ឧស� 2016 16:28


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someone in North Korea to disappear. I got to feel the terror of

being isolated and accused of crimes I had not committed, and

to be threatened with a trial in which the evidence would have

been irrelevant, and my guilt assured.

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