In California, Lisa Ling said Thursday that her sister called Tuesday to say she and Lee had broken the law in North Korea when they were captured.

Their continued detention comes as the U.S. is moving to enforce U.N. sanctions as well as its own measures against the communist regime for its May 25 nuclear test. The North also recently fired seven ballistic missiles in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

North Korea and the U.S. fought on opposite sides of the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. Washington and Pyongyang do not have diplomatic relations.

In Paris, Reporters Without Borders, known by its French acronym RSF, staged a small rally in front of the "Peace Wall" sculpture next to the Eiffel Tower on Thursday night.

"The aim is to show our solidarity" with the two jailed journalists and with the protests being held in the United States, said RSF's Lucie Morillon.

"We're here to show that it really is an international campaign, not just an American one," Morillon said.