Progressive Politicians and KCTU Activists Investigated for Being Part of North Korean Spy Ring
Here is the least surprising news of the day:
When South Korea’s largest labor umbrella group called for an end to the alliance with the U.S. and conscription during weekend rallies before Aug. 15 National Liberation Day last year, some observers questioned what those demands have to do with improving workers’ rights.
Korea Times
The National Intelligence Service (NIS) and police now suspect that the messages chanted in the Seoul streets might have come directly from Pyongyang and that it was orchestrated by regime sympathizers engaged in espionage activities here at its behest.
According to civic groups and other sources on Tuesday, NIS officials and police have been investigating allegations that some liberal activists, including party officials, helped promote anti-government activities after taking orders from North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party.
Over the past several weeks, the investigators have raided the homes and offices of the key suspects in Jeju, Jinju, Jeonju and Changwon.
It all began in July 2017 when a former high-ranking official of the Progressive Party allegedly met a North Korean agent in Siem Reap of Cambodia, where the South Korean was told to create a secret organization on Jeju Island and was informed how to communicate with North Korean officials.
It is alleged that the official later conspired with two other activists to organize a group, through which they helped stage anti-U.S. protests and supported certain election candidates. They are suspected of communicating with North Korean officials for more than five years. Taking control of “the Jeju 4.3 unification committee” under the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), the anti-U.S. protest organizer, suspending military exercises between Seoul and Washington and protesting the procurement of high tech weapons are among the orders they allegedly received from the North.
You can read more at the link, but to me this news is not surprising and according to the article the NIS began this investigation five years ago when President Moon was in power. However, only recently were they allowed to move forward with an official investigation. It is pretty clear that the Moon administration did not want to go after their own liberal supporters and the Yoon administration is going after them as part of their efforts to retaliate against North Korean provocations.
This doesn’t surprise me at all, what Yoon’s doing – using the red-baiting to accuse the trade unions, the press, and the opposition, to clamp down on political opposition, to muzzle them and put them all in jail with trumped up charges.
Korea’s press ranking by reporters without borders have put South Korea’s press freedoms ranking at 89th place (it was 41st last year when Yoon wasn’t in charge), classified as “not free”, and now much worse than Japan which used to have far worse press ranking than SK.
Yoon is not only an American puppet, he’s an incompetent dictator.