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| Human rights activists try to send balloons carrying anti-regime messages to North Korea in Paju, a city near the inter-Korean border, in this June 4, 2020 photo. The Supreme Court recently ruled in favor of rights activists, overturning a lower court ruling that justified the government's decision in 2020 to revoke the registration of a rights group led by North Korean defector Park Sang-hak for sending such leaflets to the North. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk |
Campaigner from North Korea vows to keep 'spreading truth and freedom'
By Jung Min-ho
Sending balloons filled with anti-regime leaflets into North Korea is nothing new. Activists had done that for decades despite constant complaints and even threats from Pyongyang.
So it was shocking for Park Sang-hak, the head of Fighters for a Free North Korea, a rights group known for the campaign, to be informed about the Unification Ministry's decision to revoke the group's registration in July 2020 ― only several weeks after Kim Yo-jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, complained about Seoul's inaction.
By the end of that year, the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), which was the ruling party at the time, even passed a bill prohibiting activists from sending such materials into the North on the grounds that the acts "hurt the public interest" by raising security risks.
On April 27, the Supreme Court rejected the notion, overturning a lower court ruling that justified the ministry's decision.
Sending leaflets to North Korea, the court said, would bring attention to the issue of human rights abuses there and inform ordinary North Koreans of the reality of their government. It also dismissed the argument that the campaign would cause "grave danger" to the safety of the people residing in the border area.
"The only thing we did was sending the truth to the North," Park told The Korea Times. "Yet the price we had to pay was enormous. I was interrogated many times, attended about 30 court hearings and lost almost all sponsors in the process … I came all the way here [in 1999] in search of freedom. But, ironically, the South Korean government tried to take away my freedom by persecuting me and suppressing the NGO by state forces."
The ruling was a huge win for Park and his freedom campaign. Under tremendous stress, he said he sometimes regretted his decision to settle down here instead of the United States or Japan.
Yet he remained defiant. While going through the legal battle last year, he managed to send leaflet-carrying balloons across the inter-Korean border nine times. He is determined to step up his efforts in the coming months ― and for as long as it takes for the truth to reach every North Korean.
"I will, hopefully along with more like-minded rights activists, keep spreading the truth and freedom to the North," he said.
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| Suzanne Scholte, center, chairwoman of the North Korea Freedom Coalition, listens to Park Sang-hak, head of Fighters for a Free North Korea, during a leaflet-sending campaign in Paju, a city near the inter-Korean border, in this June 4, 2020 photo. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk |
According to Suzanne Scholte, chairwoman of the North Korea Freedom Coalition, thanks to the information carried by such balloons, many ordinary North Koreans have learned about the outside world as well as inside ― the truth North Korea's propaganda machines would never tell.
"The people of North Korea learned about Kim Jong-un's murder of his half-brother, his regime's torture of Otto Warmbier that led to his death, and the election of Yoon Suk Yeol because of Park and the Fighters for Free North Korea's balloon launches. This was further affirmed by North Koreans we hosted in March who were recent escapees, they mentioned over and over again the value of the leaflets in imparting information," she said.
"The people of North Korea are starving not just from lack of food, they are also starving for information ― and Kim [Jong-un] fears the power of the truth."
Phil Robertson, deputy director of the Asia division of Human Rights Watch, an international rights group headquartered in New York City, also welcomed the court decision.
"It is commendable that the court has upheld the right of people in South Korea to freely communicate views, and struck down the previous government's action," he said. "There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that the Moon Jae-in administration overreached when they claimed that sending leaflets constituted a 'serious danger to the lives or bodies of the people,' and it is important that the court called them out on that."
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| Kim Yo-jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, signs a guest book at Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul, in this Feb. 10, 2018 photo. Korea Times file |
Robertson also pointed out the administrative move to disband Park's organization and the anti-leaflet law itself are "a clear violation" of multiple U.N. treaties that protect the right to freedom of association.
One of the violated treaties is the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which says everyone has the right to freedom of expression, which includes the "freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing, or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice." As one of the ratifying states, South Korea's laws should also be required to comply with its provisions.
Apart from the case in which the top court ruled in favor of Park's group, the anti-leaflet law is now awaiting a ruling by the Constitutional Court. Since the very beginning, the law has drawn extensive criticism from rights experts here and abroad. If ruled as being unconstitutional, the makers of the law could face domestic and international outcry.
Park said he might seek damage compensation from the government if the Constitutional Court finds the law did not comply with the Constitution.
"No one should forget that this law was promulgated as a result of direct threats by Kim Jong-un's sister against South Korea, and fear by the Moon Jae-in government that the DPRK would end any sort of North-South dialogue if Seoul did not comply," Robertson said. DPRK is an acronym for North Korea. "That is really not a good reason to develop a law, so it's not surprising that the law itself turned out to be rights abusing."
