North Korea Detains BBC’s Reporter ‘Rupert Wingfield-Hayes’
MEP: A BBC reporter, has detained and ordered to be expelled over his reporting in North Korea, the BBC said Monday.
Rupert Wingfield-Hayes was detained on Friday as he was about to leave the country, along with a BBC producer and cameraman, the network said. The three were on their way to the airport in Pyongyang on Monday afternoon, it said.
The network noted, “Our correspondent, producer Maria Byrne and cameraman Matthew Goddard were stopped by officials and were questioned for eight hours by North Korean officials and made to sign a statement.”
China’s official Xinhua news agency, which has a bureau in Pyongyang, said the North’s National Peace Committee had held a press conference on Monday saying Wingfield-Hayes had been expelled for “attacking the DPRK system and non-objective reporting”.
Wingfield-Hayes had been in town ahead of the congress to cover the visit of a group of Nobel laureates.
