BEIJING, Aug. 21 (UPI) -- A Chinese pastor claims video footage shot by two American TV journalists was used by China to round up North Korean refugees.
Lee Chan-woo of the Durihana Mission, a South Korean organization that aids North Korean defectors, said Thursday he assisted Laura Ling and Euna Lee in getting interviews at orphanages protecting North Korean children, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Ling, Lee and Mitch Koss were gathering information about North Korean women appearing in adult videos and others who were sold into the Chinese countryside. They asked Lee Chan-woo about children born to North Korean women and Chinese men. He was protecting 21 children abandoned by their Chinese families after their mothers were taken back to North Korea.
When Ling and Euna Lee were arrested in North Korea March 17, Chinese police confiscated video material, a list of activists working for North Korean refugees in China and information on the children. Ling and Lee were released this month after former President Bill Clinton intervened on their behalf.
Lee Chan-woo said China closed the orphanages where the 21 children were living, but he found alternate homes for them. He was deported back to South Korea.
