North Korea expels BBC journalist team

 

 

North Korea on Monday expelled BBC journalist Rupert Wingfield-Hayes. He was detained days earlier for allegedly "insulting the dignity" of the authoritarian country. North Korea invited scores of foreign media for its ruling party congress. (May 9) AP

A team of BBC journalists was being expelled from North Korea on Monday, the broadcaster reported.
The BBC said its correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, a producer and a cameraman were detained.....

 Friday as they were about to leave the country.
They were in the secretive nation with a delegation of Nobel prize winners who were on a research trip ahead of the Workers’ Party congress, the ruling party’s biggest meeting in 36 years.
The North Korean leadership was unhappy with the team’s reports highlighting aspects of life in Pyongyang, the BBC reported.
North Korean official O Ryong Il said Wingfield-Hayes, who is based in Tokyo, "distorted facts and realities" in his reporting.

"They were speaking very ill of the system, the leadership of the country," O told reporters in Pyongyang, according to a video published by the Associated Press.
John Sudworth, another BBC correspondent in Pyongyang, said in a report that there was "disagreement, a concern over the content of Rupert's reporting", including regarding a hospital, Reuters reported.
Wingfield-Hayes said in his report of a visit to the children's hospital in Pyongyang that the patients looked "remarkably well" and there was not a real doctor on duty. "Everything we see looks like a set-up" he said.

The BBC said officials questioned Wingfield-Hayes for eight hours and made him sign a statement. The three were detained over the weekend and have been taken to the airport, it added.
North Korea granted visas to 128 journalists to coincide with the congress, which started Friday, but foreign reporters have said they were unable to access the proceedings and have instead toured factories, hospitals and historic sites.