Author: GIKorea

This is another example that there is not freedom of speech in South Korea:

 Police said Monday they began a preliminary probe into North Korean-style posters that appeared on walls at several universities nationwide lampooning the current Moon Jae-in government over its key policies. 
The National Police Agency said it is gathering facts on a number of 112 calls made since Saturday with regard to the anti-government posters found hanging on bulletin boards at least 30 colleges in Seoul, Busan, Gangwon, as well as the southern Gyeongsang and Jeolla regions. 
“We will see if the content of the posters carry expressions that can be deemed defamation or contempt,” a NPA official said. 
The 55-by-80 centimeter, two-page poster, entitled “A Letter to South Korean Students,” blasts President Moon Jae-in’s key policies, such as income-led growth, his push to phase out nuclear power and the policy of engagement with North Korea. 
The poster is printed in the unique typeface North Korea often uses in its propaganda and appears intended as ridicule of the government. 
It calls for the overthrow of the liberal Moon administration and ends with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s signature, by his official title as chairman of the DPRK State Affairs Commission. 
The DPRK stands for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. 
The poster, claiming to be written by Jeondaehyup, calls for students to join a massive rally slated for Saturday at a public park near Seoul’s Hyewha Station. 
Jeondaehyup is an abbreviation for the now-disbanded hard-line national student activists’ association that led key democracy movements in the 1980s. The association had been attacked by South Korea’s conservative bloc for its pro-North Korea tendencies.

Yonhap

The Moon administration has been very active squelching freedom of speech in South Korea, but remember that the prior Park administration took legal action against political posters as well. However, a loop hole is to call a political poster a work of art and then it is apparently legal.

Who knows what this picture is of?:

2019 Korea Finder Leaders Board

1. Comfortable Chairs – 2
2. Smokes – 1

(LEAD) Half of S. Koreans expect U.S., N. Korea won't reach agreement on denuclearization: poll https://t.co/fkHjyy88nT

— Yonhap News Agency (@YonhapNews) March 31, 2019

This article makes me wonder what the real story is that the police are going after the Samsung heiress for something that may have happened 3 years ago?:

Police searched a plastic surgery clinic, Saturday, as part of an investigation into an allegation that Hotel Shilla CEO Lee Boo-jin habitually received injections of propofol, an intravenous short-acting anesthetic. Lee is also the oldest daughter of Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Kun-hee.

Investigators from the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency carried out an eight-hour search at the Gangnam-based clinic from 6:30 p.m., Saturday, and confiscated Lee’s medical records and the clinic’s drug control records. 

They conducted a digital forensic analysis to restore deleted data, as well. 

Later in the day, police announced they had booked the head of the clinic on the charge of violating the Medical Law.

The search came three days after the drug abuse allegation was first reported by a local media outlet, citing a former employee of the clinic. 

According to the report by Newstapa, Lee was regularly given propofol at the hospital from January to October 2016 while the witness worked there. The former employee said Lee received the substance in a VIP room at least twice a month.

In the wake of the allegation, police asked the clinic to submit its documents without seeking a warrant, but it refused to comply.

Hotel Shilla has parried the allegation, claiming that she had only visited the clinic for legitimate treatment.

Korea Times

Back in 2016 when the supposed illegal propofol use happened Lee Boo-jin was recognized by Forbes magazine as one of the Top 50 businesswomen in Asia. That year she was also dealing with a $1 billion divorce fight.

Here is a sweet ride for anyone interested:

Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.

City of Changchun rolls out propaganda subway train dedicated to the political doctrine of Xi Jinping. The municipal government described the train as a “highly condensed spiritual manual” of “Xi Jinping Thought.” https://t.co/Jc9Nwoap4V pic.twitter.com/z6LAaFP2N2

— Eric Fish (@ericfish85) March 25, 2019

I am sympathetic to the Jayu Joseon group’s goal of removing the Kim regime, but it is a slippery slope to support raiding foreign embassies:

Spain has issued two international arrest warrants in the case, one for a Mexican national residing in the U.S., Adrian Hong Chang, and the other for an American citizen. After lifting a secrecy order in the case, a Spanish investigating judge revealed the identities of seven of the alleged 10 intruders in a court document on Tuesday.
It remained unclear if the Spanish government identified the suspects in the raid through their own investigation or whether U.S. authorities had passed on the names of the alleged intruders.

The group has alleged the U.S. betrayed its trust after members approached the FBI.

“The organization shared certain information of enormous potential value with the FBI in the United States, under mutually agreed terms of confidentiality,” the group said on its website. “This information was shared voluntarily and on their request, not our own. Those terms appear to have been broken.”
Lee Wolosky, an attorney for Free Joseon and a former U.S. envoy for Guantanamo, told NBC News that “when all the facts come out regarding Madrid, it will be clear that the Spanish judge reached a number of inaccurate conclusions.”

“Certainly the decision of the Spanish judge to publicly disclose the names of those working in opposition to the Kim regime — which routinely assassinates its adversaries — was irresponsible and put these individuals in unnecessary jeopardy.”

NBC News

You can read more at the link, but if the Jayu Joseon group was not on North Korea’s hit list already, this raid has definitely made them a target for some Kim Jong-nam style retaliation.