Search Results for: fighters for a free north korea

I think the ROK needs to pay attention to this threat because the balloon activists are giving the Kim regime the rationale to launch a provocation:

A North Korean propaganda outlet on Saturday lashed out at defector groups for sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets, warning of a reaction that could go beyond the explosion of an inter-Korean liaison office two years ago. 

The Tongil Shinbo, a weekly North Korean publication, also criticized the Yoon Suk-yeol government for speaking out about human rights in North Korea and seeking the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. 

There could be an action that would exceed the blowup of the liaison office in its border town of Kaesong on June 16, 2020, if North Korean defector groups continue to send goods and leaflets to the North, the newspaper said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but I find the anger over the balloon activists ironic considering for decades North Korea used to be the ones sending propaganda balloons into South Korea. I am old enough to remember when they used to do this and when the leaflets were found we had to turn them in and could not keep them.

Kim Yo-jong is not happy with a ROK Drop favorite Park Sang-hak because his group continues leaflet activities into North Korea:

Kim Yo-jong also issued a statement blaming Seoul for letting a North Korean defectors organization fly anti-Kim regime leaflets into the country last week. 

In the statement carried by the North’s Korea Central News Agency, she called it “an intolerable provocation” and said “the South Korean authorities again did not stop the reckless acts of the defectors from the North, winking at them.” Kim warned of “a corresponding action,” without elaborating.

On Friday, Fighters for a Free North Korea, a group of North Korean defectors, claimed that it had flown balloons carrying leaflets, booklets and U.S. dollars across the border. This came weeks after South Korea criminalized such an act despite criticism from some U.S. lawmakers and international rights groups that the law banning anti-Pyongyang leaflet campaigns limited South Korea’s freedom of speech.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

ROK Heads may remember that Park Sang-hak has been the victim of multiple assassination attempts by North Korean agents and assaulted by Korean leftists. He has also had leftists intrude at his house and has been repeatedly arrested and harassed by the Moon administration in effort to stop his group’s activities. .

Political leaders in both the UK and United States are speaking out against the ban put on activist groups sending leaflets to North Korea:

The international community’s move against South Korea’s ban on sending anti-Kim Jong-un regime propaganda leaflets to North Korea is intensifying. Since the National Assembly, which is dominated by the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), passed a bill to implement the ban last December, criticism has continued to grow internationally that the law undermines freedom of speech, with members of the U.K. Parliament and the U.S. Congress raising the issue and planning to hold a debate and hearing session, respectively.

The DPK passed the law claiming it is needed to protect the lives of South Koreans living in the border region, although critics claim it is caving into North Korea’s demands in the hope of keeping bilateral relations alive. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but according to the article Park Sang-hak the leader of Fighters for a Free North Korea that the Korean left has been trying to get jailed, is traveling to Washington, DC to speak at a Congressional hearing on this topic.

No surprise here that the ruling Democratic Party gave in to orders from Kim Yo-jong to criminalize the activists sending leaflets into North Korea:

The ruling Democratic Party of Korea’s (DPK) passage of a bill at the national Assembly prohibiting the sending of leaflets with anti-North Korea messages across the border is facing a strong backlash from defectors’ groups and the opposition as well as the international community.

Park Sang-hak, the head of the Fighters for a Free North Korea, a North Korean defectors’ group, said Tuesday that he will file a petition with the Constitutional Court against the so-called “anti-leaflet law,” which can hand down a prison term of three years or a maximum fine of 30 million won to people sending messages critical of the North Korean regime via leaflets or broadcasts.

The DPK pushed ahead with passing the bill despite a protest from the conservative opposition People Power Party late Monday evening. The bill came after a statement from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s sister Kim Yo-jong in June in which she strongly denounced such leaflets and called on Seoul to do something about them. The opposition and activists for North Korean human rights such as Park have derided it as legislation “submitting to Kim Yo-jong’s order.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but the article speculates that this might impact relations with the incoming Biden administration. I would be surprised if it does because when did anyone in the Obama administration ever strongly support these activists? I doubt the Biden administration will be much different.

By the way the North Korean reaction and the South Korean left’s quick criminalization of Park Sang-hak and his group is a sure sign that the leaflets are having an effect in North Korea.

Here is the latest Moon administration attack on the human rights group that send leaflets into North Korea:

The government is seeking stronger measures against activist and North Korean defectors groups that have been sending anti-North Korea leaflets across the inter-Korean border, stating that their campaigns are not helping to create peace on the Korean Peninsula.

North Korea watchers say that the government’s tough stance could lead to the campaigns losing ground here. 

On Monday, the Ministry of Unification held a hearing to give two North Korean defectors’ groups a final opportunity to justify their actions before it makes a decision on whether to revoke their civic group licenses, following their sending of propaganda leaflets, rice and other items across the border. 

“We held a hearing today for Fighters for a Free North Korea and Kuensaem,” the ministry said in a press statement. “After checking whether there are any additional documents they need to submit, we will proceed with the license revocation and other related procedures.”

If their licenses are annulled, they will not be able to hold official fundraisers. Currently, donors for activist groups are eligible for various tax benefits.

“Individuals can donate, but their contribution could be seen as a donation of their property, which means they may have to pay gift taxes,” ministry spokesman Yoh Sang-key said. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but this is the state of affairs in Korea right now. Leaders running human rights groups trying to make change in North Korea will have to pay taxes for donations while leaders of comfort women groups get to embezzle the money and then get appointed to the National Assembly to avoid prosecution.

It is interesting how the Moon administration is putting more pressure on a human rights activist to change his behavior than they ever have on the Kim regime to modify their behavior:

Police on Friday searched the house and office of a former North Korean defector who has been at the center of the anti-Pyongyang leafleting campaign in South Korea, denounced vehemently by North Korea. 

The national security probe team of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency dispatched officials to search the home and office in Seoul of Park Sang-hak, who heads Fighters for a Free North Korea, an activist group that has been leading the campaign to send anti-North Korean propaganda leaflets across the border. 

The police officials combed through Park’s places in Songpa Ward, eastern Seoul, to secure potential evidence.

“The search is part of efforts to seize materials so that we could verify if Park’s activities are in breach of law,” a police officer said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the Moon administration is searching his house and making a media spectacle out of it to force him to have to move. ROK Heads may remember that Park Sang-Hak in the past has faced assassination attempts by North Korean agents and had leftist thugs assault him to stop his balloon protests.

With his address now disclosed he will have to move to avoid the leftist crazies that will be coming after him. I would have to think that Park and his group knew this day was coming as soon as Moon Jae-in was elected President and have some kind of contingency plan in place to lay low for a while.

This could be the last balloon launch for the Fighters for A Free North Korea for a while considering how the ROK government has put the clamps on their activities:

A South Korean activist group released balloons containing anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets across the border in the dead of night on Monday, in defiance of the South Korean government’s attempts to prevent such acts amid heightened tensions with North Korea.    
   
Park Sang-hak, head of the organization Fighters for a Free North Korea, said six members of his group launched 20 balloons containing half a million leaflets, 500 books advertising the success of South Korea’s capitalist system, 2,000 one dollar bills and 1,000 memory cards across the border towards the North from a secluded location in Paju, Gyeonggi, from 11 p.m. to midnight.    
   
One of those balloons was discovered stuck on trees on the banks of a stream in Hongcheon County, Gangwon, by police Tuesday afternoon.  
   
“In order to evade [South Korean] police surveillance, I trained members unaccustomed to dispatching leaflets to send the flyers,” Park announced, before delivering a tirade condemning the Moon Jae-in administration for attempting to silence defector groups from speaking out.   
   
The Ministry of Unification, South Korea’s top inter-Korean agency, on Tuesday expressed “deep regret” at the act, and announced it was taking “serious” measures to punish the group for violating the government’s ban on leaflet distributions.    
   
“The government once again stresses clearly that it will strongly respond to the dissemination of leaflets and items towards North Korea, which raise tensions between South and North and endanger the lives and safety of local residents,” the ministry stated in a press release.  
   
The ministry spokesman raised doubts, however, about Park’s claim that his group had released 500,000 leaflets Monday night, saying that based on investigations of the amount of leaflets the group prepared beforehand and the wind conditions that night, none of the released balloons appear to have entered North Korean territory.   
   
After police confiscated the group’s hydrogen gas supplies used to fuel balloon launches in the past, the group apparently obtained only enough helium to float a single balloon — likely the one found at Hongcheon, the ministry said. The balloon that was retrieved did not contain books, dollar bills or memory cards, it added.  

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

It appears that the Moon administration wants to treat the balloon launch human rights activists like they do conservative journalists by threatening them with jail:

The unification ministry said Wednesday that it will file a complaint with police against two North Korean defector groups for sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border, a day after the North cut off all inter-Korean communication lines over such leafleting. 

The ministry said that it will also take action to revoke business permits granted to the groups, Fighters for Free North Korea and Keunsaem, accusing them of putting the safety of people living in border regions at risk by sending leaflets into the North.

“They have violated public interests by heightening tensions between the South and the North and by running squarely against the agreements reached by the leaders of the two Koreas, and also caused danger to the lives and safety of residents in the border regions,” the ministry said in a press release.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but this is once again another example of how South Korea is a rule by law nation and not a rule of law nation. These activists have been doing this for years and one of their leaders Park Sang-Hak has faced assassination attempts by North Korean agents and had leftist thugs assault him to stop his balloon protests. Now with a change of government and complaints from North Korea, what they are doing is suddenly illegal.

I do find it interesting that the Moon administration is willing to send police to chase down these human rights activists, but they won’t send police to keep the road to the THAAD site in Seongju open:

A local civic group led by a North Korean defector attempted to send leaflets criticizing the Kim Jong-un regime across the border last weekend but was blocked by police, after both Koreas agreed at their latest summit not to disseminate propaganda material into each other’s country.

But Park Sang-hak, leader of Fighters for Free North Korea, claimed he already flew 150,000 leaflets into the North last Thursday from an undisclosed venue in Gimpo, Gyeonggi, accusing Pyongyang’s recent olive branch to Seoul of being a “disguised peace offensive.”

Park’s attempt to send more leaflets on Saturday noon from Paju, Gyeonggi, just south of the inter-Korean border, fell on the last day of the so-called North Korea Freedom Week, the last week of every April during which nongovernmental organizations promoting human rights in North Korea shed light on the regime’s atrocities.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

For those that don’t know Mr. Park Sang-hak the leader of Fighters for a Free North Korea, he is the person that the South Korean leftists have sent thugs to assault and the Kim regime has sent assassins to kill.  Despite all of this Mr. Park continues to fearlessly launch balloons into North Korea.   I think it is only a matter of time before the leftist thugs are sent after Park again.

For Suzanne Scholte pictured above I don’t know what visa she is on, but the Moon administration could try and silence her by claiming she is violating her visa by conducting political activity.  It is pretty clear that for the next few years operations for these North Korean human rights organizations is going to be very difficult.

I would love to see what “evidence” the Kim regime has gathered on this supposed assassination attempt on Kim Jong-un to warrant an extradition request:

Pyongyang will seek the extradition of anyone involved in what it says was a CIA-backed plot to kill leader Kim Jung Un last month with a biochemical poison, a top North Korean foreign ministry official said Thursday.

Han Song Ryol, the vice foreign minister, called a meeting of foreign diplomats in Pyongyang on Thursday to outline the North’s allegation that the CIA and South Korea’s intelligence agency bribed and coerced a North Korean man into joining in the assassination plot, which the North’s Ministry of State Security has suggested was thwarted last month.

The North’s state media have been running stories about the plot since last week. The security ministry has vowed to “ferret out” anyone involved in the alleged plot, which it called “state-sponsored terrorism.”  [Associated Press]

I am beginning to think that maybe the Kim regime is pushing this story for domestic consumption in order to make it appear that the CIA killed his older brother Kim Jong-nam?  The defector groups have been sending balloons across the border informing North Koreans of the murder of Kim Jong-nam in Malaysia.

By claiming the assassination attempt on Kim Jong-un used a bio-chemical substance that makes it appear the same group that killed his older brother was trying to kill him too.  Though I think these claims are targeted towards a domestic North Korean audience, the claims may have some carry over effect internationally as well. Considering how there are still people who don’t believe the North Koreans sunk the Cheonan, there will probably be people who think the CIA is behind some plot to kill the Kim family as well.