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(SEOUL, South Korea) — South Korea’s executive stated Wednesday that this can also press charges against two activist groups which trust been floating anti-Pyongyang leaflets and bottles crammed with rice to North Korea for allegedly breaking the law by sending unauthorized affords to the rival nation.
The announcement by Seoul’s Unification Ministry came a day after North Korea launched it became lowering off all conversation channels with South Korea over its inability to end North Korean defectors and varied activists from flying the leaflets for the duration of the border.
Yoh Sang-key, the ministry’s spokesman, informed newshounds the 2 organizations to be charged had “created tensions between the South and North and brought ache to the lives and security of (South Korean) residents in border areas.”
Seoul’s pursuit of proper motion against the groups is at chance of procedure off a debate over freedom of expression and whether President Moon Jae-in’s liberal executive is sacrificing democratic tips to relieve alive his ambitions for inter-Korean engagement.
For years, activists trust floated immense balloons into North Korea carrying leaflets criticizing chief Kim Jong Un over his nuclear ambitions and irascible human rights anecdote. The leafleting has infrequently precipitated a livid response from North Korea, which bristles at any are trying to undermine its leadership.
In 2014, squaddies exchanged fire after South Korean activists launched propaganda balloons for the duration of the Demilitarized Zone, however no casualties had been reported.
Yoh claimed that the 2 groups to be charged, led by North Korean defector Park Sang-hak and his brother Park Jung-oh, violated a law governing inter-Korean exchanges and cooperation by sending unauthorized affords to the North.
Park Sang-hak’s Combatants for a Free North Korea has launched balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets for years. Park Jung-oh leads the neighborhood Keun Saem, which on Monday unsuccessfully tried to float rice-crammed bottles into North Korea from a border town sooner than being blocked by South Korean police.
Neither neighborhood answered repeated calls for comment Wednesday.
The ministry didn’t reveal whether it became planning to retract the same proper motion against every other neighborhood led by Lee Min-bok, moreover a North Korean defector who has been flying leaflets into the North for years.
Experts reveal North Korea’s switch to sever off conversation channels became likely greater than appropriate about leafleting as it comes after months of frustration over Seoul’s unwillingness to defy U.S.-led sanctions and resume inter-Korean financial initiatives that might perchance well well breathe life into the North’s broken economy.
North Korea has suspended almost about all cooperation with South Korea in present months amid a stalemate in higher nuclear negotiations with the Washington.
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