San Francisco’s Academy of Art University (AAU), a community of student and professional artists, designers and broadcasters, stands in unity with Euna Lee, 2001 BFA motion pictures and television alumna, and Laura Ling, adding its voices to the international demands for their immediate release.

Both American journalists were sentenced to 12 years in labor prison after being convicted of illegally crossing the border into North Korea and “grave crimes” against that country. The two had been working on a story on human trafficking from the Chinese side of the border for Current TV, headquartered in San Francisco.

On June 24, AAU, in cooperation with diverse local community groups, organized a “Community Peaceful Gathering” to show support for Lee and Ling. Family and friends, including Lee’s husband, Ian Clayton, and Ling’s husband, Michael Saldate, were joined by students, alumni and faculty along with such organizations as the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA).

Jan Yanehiro, director of AAU’s School of Multimedia Communications and a founding member of AAJA’s Bay Area chapter, moderated the event. AAJA’s Lisa Chung, former reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle and columnist for the San Jose Mercury News, read the following statement:

I’m speaking on behalf of the Asian American Journalists Association, a national group with chapters across the country and 1,900 members, some whom are foreign correspondents based in posts from Beijing to New Delhi.

AAJA stands with the organizations co-sponsoring this gathering ... in calling for these two colleagues to be brought home to their families.

This is not only a statement about solidarity with sister organizations. It gets personal.

In March of this year, Roxana Saberi, an American journalist of Iranian and Japanese descent, was arrested in Tehran. AAJA and others called for her release. Some of our members initiated a “Free Roxana Saberi” site on the Internet and combined forces with her alma mater, Northwestern University, in providing constant updates, a Twitterfeed and links on that site.

Why? In part because many of our members remembered mentoring Roxana as a student, and proudly followed her progress over the years, as she reported for NPR and BBC.

Only two weeks after the news of Roxana, Euna Lee and Laura Ling’s detention came.

We know the award-winning coverage of the Current TV’s Vanguard division, where Euna and Laura work. And we know Laura’s sister, Lisa, who has actively supported AAJA’s scholarship events, which have given young journalists their start.

But even if we did not have a personal connection with these journalists, we colleagues have a visceral connection with the work they do. And even if you have never met Euna or Laura, you have a connection, too.

Often, we talk about how technology makes the world smaller. That it shrinks the distance between countries, cultures, peoples, and governments.

But c’mon. We are largely a nation of channel-surfing, link-clicking homebodies. Admit it: In such a big wide world, journalists bring us places we might never go, show us things we might never see, engage us and enrage us about issues we never knew we cared about. Until journalists like Euna and Laura take us there. Virtually.

When they stop going to these places, we stop going to these places.

Two days ago, I started getting frantic e-mails from colleagues, with a name: Maziar Bahari, a Canadian of Iranian descent, and a correspondent for Newsweek. He had been arrested without charges in Tehran.

“Let people know,” they said. Speak his name, don’t let him disappear. Today, another e-mail. Another name: Iason Athanasiadis, a Greek reporter arrested at Tehran airport. More than 40 journalists and bloggers have been arrested since the election in Iran.

There are reasons for hope: Roxana was freed in May. This past weekend came the amazing report of New York Times reporter David Rohde escaping his Taliban captors in Pakistan.

They are free to produce a lifetime of reportage for the rest of us less-intrepid homebodies.

It is for this reason we are here, whether we know Roxana or not. Whether we know Maziar or not. Whether we know Euna and Laura or not. We know their names. And we speak them.

Set them free. Let them continue to do what they do well.