'Is this Seoul, or Pyongyang?': in Moon's Korea, defectors from North face jail for propaganda fliers

For more than a decade, Park Sang-hak has flown leaflets attacking North Korea's ruling Kim dynasty across the heavily militarised border that divides the Koreas.

Like other North Korean defectors-turned-activists in South Korea, Park believes the key to bringing down his homeland's totalitarian system lies in arming his former compatriots with information about the outside world. After years of attracting controversy in his adopted home, Park's activism could soon land him in jail.

Under proposals backed by South Korea's left-leaning president Moon Jae-in, activists who send propaganda fliers and other material across the inter-Korean border would face up to three years in prison and fines of up to 30 million won (US$28,000). The Moon administration has pushed the measures as necessary to maintain positive inter-Korean relations and ensure the safety of residents at the border, where military skirmishes occasionally take place. Pyongyang has reacted furiously to the leaflet campaigns, blasting the activists responsible as "human scum".

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When the North in June blew up a liaison office that had stood as a rare symbol of cooperation between the uneasy neighbours, who were divided in the aftermath of World War II, official state media blamed Seoul's failure to block the leaflet drops.

The legal changes are expected to pass the National Assembly, where Moon's Democratic Party commands a strong majority, within days, amid an ongoing filibuster by conservative opposition lawmakers that has delayed the proposals moving forward.

North Korean human rights activists and conservative politicians have condemned the clampdown as betraying the democratic South's liberal values, including freedom of speech, and capitulating to a nuclear-armed authoritarian regime, described in a 2014 UN Commission of Inquiry as responsible for human rights abuses without "parallel in the contemporary world".

North Korea blows up its liaison office, blaming Seoul's failure to block the leaflet drops. Photo: Reuters alt=North Korea blows up its liaison office, blaming Seoul's failure to block the leaflet drops. Photo: Reuters

New York-based Human Rights Watch has warned the law would "make engaging in humanitarianism and human rights activism a criminal offence", urging Seoul to recognise that "promoting human rights is not at odds with effective foreign policy".

"It's a deprivation of the people's basic rights and the constitutionally enshrined freedom of speech," said Park, who fled the North in 1999 and now runs the advocacy group Fighters for a Free North Korea. "Is this Seoul, or is this Pyongyang?"

The Unification Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. A source close to the Moon administration, however, said the law was justified because of Pyongyang's history of firing on border areas in retaliation for leaflets and the existence of various inter-Korean agreements prohibiting aggression between the sides.

"Most importantly, those who live in the demilitarised zone area and those who favour inter-Korean rapprochement have been putting immense political pressures on the Moon Jae-in government," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "They argue their safety and inter-Korean peace are more important than freedom of expression."

The source also questioned the motivations of some activists, some of whom receive support from overseas.

"It is known that less than 30 per cent of those propaganda materials reach North Korea," the source said. "Yet, North Korean defectors are engaging in such activities in order to get financial support from the United States and elsewhere. Thus, there seems to be more material, rather than moral, motivations behind their activities."

North Korean students stage a rally to denounce South Korea after defectors flew anti-Pyongyang leaflets over the border. Photo: AP alt=North Korean students stage a rally to denounce South Korea after defectors flew anti-Pyongyang leaflets over the border. Photo: AP

Moon, a former human rights lawyer, has often been accused of suppressing advocacy that could complicate his efforts toward reconciliation and eventual reunification with the North, which have made little headway since the last of three summits he held with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in 2018.

In July, the South's Ministry of Unification revoked the registrations of two defector-led organisations that had sent leaflets across the border, including Park's Fighters for a Free North Korea. The ministry soon afterward began an audit of 25 non-profit groups involved in North Korea advocacy that activists viewed as politically motivated.

In September, the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights announced the government had stopped granting it access to its resettlement centre for North Korean refugees, Hanawon, severely impeding the NGO's work of documenting abuses in the North.

"In the early days, I thought of Moon Jae-in as the human rights lawyer president," said Jung Gwang-il, a North Korean defector who runs the non-profit organisation No Chain. "But what's a shame is he's just another one of the powerful people who's creating a society without human rights."

Inter-Korean relations are a divisive and politically-charged topic in the South, where attitudes about whether to engage or isolate the North often split along ideological and partisan lines. Like his predecessors on the political left, Moon, a son of North Korean refugees, has emphasised dialogue and economic cooperation to overcome divisions between the Koreas, which remain technically at war after the Korean war ended with an armistice not a peace treaty.

In an opinion survey carried out by Realmeter in June, 50 per cent of South Koreans said they supported banning the propaganda leaflet drops, compared to 41 per cent opposed. In 2015, a South Korean court ruled that sending leaflets across the border could not be prohibited in principle out of respect for freedom of expression, although it could be prevented in individual cases where it put people's safety at risk.

Lee Jae-bong, a professor of political science at Wonkwang University in Iksan, about 180km southwest of Seoul, said the leaflet campaigns could not be allowed if the two Koreas were to work toward peace and reconciliation.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Photo: AP alt=South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Photo: AP

"The first phase of unification policy since the Roh Tae-woo administration in 1989 has been reconciliation, cooperation and peaceful coexistence," Lee said. "One side can't slander the other side while seeking reconciliation and cooperation."

"No matter who is supporting it, it is desirable to block behaviour that interferes with reconciliation and cooperation, or impedes peace and unification on the Korean peninsula," said Lee.

While the leaflet ban looks certain to become law, activists have vowed not to be deterred.

Park, who is already facing separate charges related to his leaflet campaigns and allegedly assaulting a group of journalists outside his home, said the law would only make him work harder.

"Even if I go to jail, I will send more propaganda leaflets to the North, more often," he said. "This is the promise we North Korean defectors have made to the 20 million North Koreans who have been deprived of their basic rights and deceived by the Kim dynasty's lies and hypocrisy. Because it's our conscience, vocation and obligation."

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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