Seoul Searching: Off Limits

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25 North Koreans who sought refuge in the Spanish embassy in Beijing last Thursday got off the plane in Seoul Monday, ready to start new lives. They were greeted by a phalanx of journalists, eager to hear their dramatic stories. "We came to South Korea looking for freedom," one man said to the cameras.

But the refugees weren't allowed to tell journalists about their flight from poverty and hunger in North Korea and the events leading up to that risky dash past a Chinese guard—immortalized by CNN's cameras. Journalists at Korea's Incheon airport were allowed to ask a total of five questions, arranged in advance by the Korean press corps assigned to the airport. Five questions shouted across an airport lobby at a group of 25 refugees is not a press conference—it's a photo opportunity, just long enough for the refugees to wave happily in front of the television cameras. Who decided on the format? The Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS), Korea's version of the CIA.

By Wednesday, the refugees were still under investigation at a NIS facility, where they are off-limits to everybody. The NIS, which tends to reveal little about its business, says it has no official explanation for the decision not to let the refugees talk freely to the press. But a NIS spokesperson said the reason "might be that you can't do a press conference when you don't even know if they are real refugees or not." They could be Korean-Chinese from China trying to sneak into Korea disguised as defectors to work illegally, or they could be spies, he said. Fair enough, except it is hard to see what the security risk is here. And why would any self-respecting North Korean spy pick such a difficult way to get into porous South Korea?

But even if the refugees check out, the NIS has no plans to let them speak to the press. After jumping through hoops at the NIS, the refugees will be locked up for about two months at a government facility where they will be taught how to live in, well, a free society (they will go on excursions into the real world, but always under escort. Never mind that most of them have been in China for a year using cell phones and money and other basics of modern life). And they won't be giving press conferences during that period either. South Korea's Unification Ministry says journalists can apply for permission to visit the facility "but we have a rule that media coverage is prohibited."

The NIS has another reason for keeping the refugees and the press apart, the official says—there are too many of them (almost 600 arrived last year, a record number). "If we had to hold press conferences for every defector we would be holding press conferences all year round," he said.

In fact, that sounds like a great idea. The world would certainly learn a lot more about what is going on in North Korea. If that is too much trouble for the NIS, maybe it should get out of the business of stage-managing press conferences and let the refugees talk to whomever they like. This is the land of freedom, isn't it?