For more than two months, a freelance photographer, Jae-Hyun Seok, has been held behind bars in Communist China. He was detained in late January while traveling with a group of more than 60 North Koreans in China who were attempting passage to South Korea and freedom. The Red Chinese government has accused Mr. Seok of human trafficking, for which he faces a sentence of five to seven years. The incident has gotten little attention in the American press, but the Village Voice’s Cathy Hong shined a spotlight on Mr. Seok’s case this week.

The communist regime has a terrible record of jailing journalists. The Committee to Protect Journalists keeps tabs on such abuses, and has this to say about the butchers of Beijing: “China currently holds 39 journalists in prison, making the country the world’s leading jailer of jour nalists for the fourth year in a row…With China’s notoriously opaque political and judicial systems, it is very difficult to obtain accurate and up-to-date information about imprisoned journalists. Once detainees enter the prison system, they often disappear from the world’s radar screen, forgotten by the international community.”

Often the only thing that can help secure the release of such political prisoners is international attention. The South Korean government is burying the Seok incident in the midst of North Korea’s escalation, Ms. Hong reports. The editorialists of the New York Times, a newspaper for which Mr. Seok has worked, are busy criticizing President Bush for having “needlessly estranged” China. By arresting journalists like Mr. Seok, China is needlessly estranging itself from the values of freedom that America holds dear.