North Korea kicks out BBC team over 'non-objective reporting'

BBC correspondent Rupert Wingfield-Hayes and his team have been expelled from North Korea for covering distorted facts and “speaking ill” of the system.

Wingfield-Hayes and producer Maria Byrne and cameraman Matthew Goddard were kicked out from Pyongyang on Monday, the broadcaster and a North Korean official said.

North Korea’s National Peace Committee Secretary General O Ryong-il said at a press conference on Monday that the BBC reporter had been expelled for “attacking the DPRK system and non-objective reporting.”

Wingfield-Hayes’s coverage of distorted facts and “spoke ill of the system and the leadership of the country,” he also said.

The North Korean official noted that Wingfield-Hayes was expelled after writing an apology and would not be readmitted into the North.

The three were about to leave North Korea on Friday, but were stopped at the airport and taken into detention.

Wingfield-Hayes “was taken to a hotel and interrogated by…

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