AP Photo

Last week a North Korean court sentenced American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling to 12 years of "reform through labor." The women, arrested in March along the North's border with China, were researching the plight of North Korean refugees who flee to China. Their trial was closed, and their crimes -- other than the alleged illegal border crossing -- were unspecified.

In recent years, I have spent many hours interviewing refugees from North Korea, including some who escaped from re-education camps. Their accounts of prison life accord with a recent assessment by the U.S. State Department. Conditions are brutal and life threatening, according to the February report. "Torture occurred," the report notes matter-of-factly. Refugees have spoken to me of...