Prominent Leftist Group With Ties to North Korea Raided By Police

This is actually just another example that Korea is a rule by law, instead of a rule of law nation because these guys have been violating the National Security Laws for years:

Detectives from the National Intelligence Service (NIS) and the Security Investigative Team of the National Policy Agency (NPA) raided nineteen places, including the South Korea branch office of the Pan-Korean Alliance for Reunification (PKAR), on charges of violating the National Security Law on Thursday.

It was reported that the NIS arrested six persons including Lee Kyu-jae, 73 years old and chairman of PKAR’s South Korea branch, and searched their headquarters located in the Namyoung neighborhood of Seoul. It is the first time in six years, since Professor Song Du-yul’s case in 2003, the NIS has directly involved itself in the investigation of a security matter.

At 6:30 a.m. of the same day, detectives from the NIS and NPA raided twelve houses of PKAR senior members, six offices of PKAR, and the company that has managed PKAR’s email. The NIS says that they are analyzing hard discs, accounting records and publications that they secured during the raid.

The NIS also arrested three PKAR senior members, and three senior members of the South Korean branch of the All-Korean Committee for Implementation of the 6.15 Joint Declaration. The NIS says that it is investigating them both for whether they have communicated with North Korean without the South Korean government’s permission or praised North Korea in their publications.  [Hankyoreh]

The Joong Ang Ilbo is reporting that the police believe the Pan-Korean Alliance for Reunification was taking orders from North Korea in violation of the National Security Law.

For those that don’t know, the Pan-Korean Alliance for Reunification is one of the many North Korean front groups active in South Korea.  For example the former Vice Chairman of the PKAR, Kang Soon-jeong was arrested back in 2006 as a North Korean spy that instigate the MacArthur Statue protests in Incheon that ultimately led to a massive counter-demonstration by ROK Marine Corps veterans that turned the streets of Incheon into utter anarchy of fisticuffs.

The PKAR has been active in communist causes for years.  In recent years they even teamed up with leftist communists groups in the US to protest the US-ROK FTA. PKAR members have also been regularly going back and forth to Pyongyang to receive their marching orders these past few years with no action taken by the prior Roh Moo-hyun administration.

A North Korean poster promoting the communist country’s Songun or military-first ideology the Seoul chapter of the Korean Teachers and Education Workers’ Union recently advised members to put up in classrooms.

The PKAR has also been active in promoting the North Korean Songun philosophy in Korean school classrooms and even decorates their webpage with North Korean propaganda posters.  They have also been active in the anti-USFK movement as well.

I could go on and on but I think everyone gets the point that these people have been breaking the law for years, but has been able to get away with it due to the past governments not enforcing the law.  This selective enforcement of the law is nothing new in Korea because while these North Korean apologists and spies was busy degrading the country, the Roh government was busy trying to silence the ROK veterans groups that regularly counter-protests these North Korean stooges.

By the PKAR has also been part of an effort to get the Obama administration to sign a peace treaty between the US and North Korea.  This effort actually appears to be working considering Stephen Bosworth is now the US envoy to North Korea.