SEOUL — A North Korean defector has been indicted on fees of breaking a South Korean regulation banning the unfold of propaganda leaflets alongside the inter-Korean border, prosecutors and attorneys stated Friday.
Park Sang-hak is the primary individual to be indicted beneath the brand new regulation, which critics say places a coverage of engagement with North Korea above human rights.
For years, Mr. Park and others like him have introduced balloons into North Korea loaded with propaganda leaflets urging North Koreans to get up in opposition to their authoritarian chief, Kim Jong-un. Beneath the regulation, which went into impact final March, sending such leaflets used to be made a criminal offense punishable via a effective or a jail time period of as much as 3 years.
Mr. Park defied the ban in April via launching 10 balloons sporting a part million leaflets. The police later raided his place of job and interrogated him. In July, they officially requested prosecutors to indict Mr. Park beneath the regulation, which President Moon Jae-in has vowed to strictly put into effect.
Lee Hun, Mr. Park’s attorney, stated on Friday that he gained a proper understand from prosecutors that Mr. Park have been indicted on Wednesday on fees of “making an attempt” to ship the leaflets as a result of investigators lacked proof that the leaflets in reality landed within the North.
A remnant from the Chilly Warfare, the leaflets have created tensions no longer most effective between the 2 Koreas but additionally between North Korean human rights activists and Mr. Moon’s govt.
North Korea has known as the leaflets an “insupportable provocation.” Mr. Moon’s govt backed the brand new regulation after accusing activists of frightening the North unnecessarily.
The president’s conservative critics accused him of suppressing freedom of speech and assisting Mr. Kim’s totalitarian regime “at North Korea’s behest.”
“If an evil regulation is a regulation, ship me to jail!” Mr. Park stated on Friday. “Despite the fact that they ship me to jail, my colleagues will proceed to ship leaflets.”
After Mr. Park introduced the leaflets in April, Mr. Kim’s sister and spokeswoman, Kim Yo-jong, known as him “grimy human scum” and warned of “penalties.”
About 33,800 North Koreans have fled to South Korea for the reason that Nineties. Mr. Park, who fled in 1999, has stood out for his extremely public marketing campaign supporting North Korean human rights, despite the fact that critics imagine him theatrical.
His crew, Combatants For Unfastened North Korea, calls the ruling Kim circle of relatives in Pyongyang womanizers and “dictatorial pigs,” and burns them in effigy all through outside rallies in South Korea. Its leaflets additionally name Mr. Kim a “human butcher” who killed his uncle and part brother.
There was no credible find out about on what number of North Koreans learn or react to the propaganda leaflets. Analysts say that leaflets don’t seem to be as efficient as radio publicizes and flash drives smuggled around the Chinese language border. However launching leaflets is most likely the activists’ maximum visual marketing campaign tactic.
Mr. Park has frequently invited media to his balloon-launching ceremonies, the place the massive hydrogen balloons go with the flow internationally’s maximum closely armed border. As soon as in North Korea, timer units click on, unfastening vinyl bundles. Leaflets, greenback expenses, mini-Bibles and USB drives chock-full of content material banned within the North fall out of the sky like snowflakes.
Mr. Kim assists in keeping his other folks beneath a complete knowledge blackout in North Korea, blocking off the web and ensuring all radio and TV units obtain his govt’s propaganda publicizes most effective. The federal government in Seoul stated the balloons endanger other folks residing on all sides of the border.
In 2014, the North Korean army fired shells at balloons drifting around the border, however as an alternative hit South Korean villages, prompting the South to go back hearth.
In a ballot taken final Would possibly, 51 p.c of the respondents in South Korea supported the brand new ban, whilst 37 p.c stated it violated freedom of speech. Amongst the ones residing as regards to the border, the beef up price used to be 57 to 60 p.c. Towns and provinces close to the border have also referred to as for Mr. Park’s punishment.
When North Korea blew up in 2020 a liaison place of job on its aspect of the border the place officers from each Koreas had labored in combination, it cited South Korea’s failure to put in force an settlement banning leaflets and different propaganda struggle because the impetus. Mr. Moon’s govt sped up its efforts to push the anti-leaflet invoice via Parliament after the liaison place of job used to be destroyed.
South Korea’s conservative opposition has famous a jarring distinction between Mr. Moon’s crackdown on leaflets and his restrained reaction when North Korea killed a South Korean fisheries reputable or when the rustic likened Mr. Moon to a “parrot” and “mongrel canine” that adopted orders from the US.
“President Moon turns out to consider that the one strategy to stay peace at the Korean Peninsula is to do not anything that may disturb the Kim brother and sister within the North,” stated Tae Yong-ho, a former North Korean diplomat who’s now an opposition lawmaker in Seoul.
Mr. Park, who is about to visit trial within the coming weeks for violating the leaflet ban, has some harsh critics of his personal, a lot of whom also are North Korean human rights activists.
Lee Min-bok, any other defector from North Korea, criticized no longer most effective the regulation but additionally Mr. Park, who he stated jeopardized all of the balloon marketing campaign via frightening each governments.
Mr. Lee began sending leaflets in 2006, sooner than Mr. Park, and liked low-key operations that didn’t draw in media consideration. He introduced leaflets that fascinated by offering information from out of doors North Korea, relatively than criticizing the Kim regime.
“The extraordinarily provocative language in Park Sang-hak’s leaflets has not anything to do with selling North Korean human rights, however is customized to delight conservatives and impress progressives within the South,” Mr. Lee stated. “He needs to grow to be a hero via going to jail for combating this regulation.”
Mr. Park’s felony troubles precede Friday’s indictment. He’s additionally on trial for breaking a regulation on accumulating donations. In August, he used to be given a suspended eight-month jail time period for beating a South Korean TV reporter who confirmed up at his house for an interview request.
Mr. Park has denied the allegations in opposition to him and disregarded his critics as “snakes” and “hypocrites.” He frequently issues to an incident in 2011, when a person used to be arrested in South Korea on a price of plotting to assassinate him with a poison needle at North Korea’s request.
“Kim Jong-un needs to kill me, and President Moon needs to ship me to jail,” Mr. Park advised newshounds in Would possibly. “However they can not forestall us from telling information and fact.”
