A South Korean activist says he launched a million propaganda leaflets by balloon into North Korea this week. Park Sang-hak is on trial for a past leafleting campaign under a new South Korea law that carries up to three years in prison for such actions.
The law that took effect in March 2021 and punishes anti-Pyongyang leafleters with up to three years in prison has been hotly debated in South Korea, with critics saying Seoul’s liberal government was sacrificing freedom of speech to improve ties with rival North Korea.
On Monday and Tuesday, his group floated 20 huge balloons carrying leaflets critical of North Korea’s nuclear program and the Kim family’s hereditary rule across the tense Korean border, Park said.Park said the balloons also contained pictures of South Korea’s incoming conservative president, Yoon Suk Yeol, to show North Koreans the difference between the South’s election system and the North’s father-to-son successions.
Police in Gyeonggi province, who have jurisdiction over the border areas where Park claimed to have launched the leaflets, said they were checking details about Park’s activities. They said they weren’t aware of Park’s reported leafleting in advance. North Korea is extremely sensitive about any outside attempt to undermine Kim Jong Un’s leadership and weaken his absolute control over the country’s 26 million people, most of whom have little access to foreign news. In 2020, North Korea blew up an empty, South Korean-built liaison office on its territory after making a furious response to South Korean civilian leafleting campaigns.
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