Activist to suspend anti-NK leaflet campaign

By Yi Whan-woo

Park Sang-hak

The leader of an anti-North Korean activist group said Monday that the organization will suspend sending propaganda leaflets attached to balloons into the repressive state amid worries over possible retaliation from Pyongyang.

Park Sang-hak, a defector-turned activist who leads the Fighters for a Free North Korea (FFNK), said that the organization will not send balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) for the time being.

He also said that the FFNK and its coalition groups scrapped a plan this week to drop DVDs and USB sticks holding “The Interview” movie into North Korea.

“The Interview” is a satirical Hollywood film that depicts the fictional assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The military regime in Pyongyang was infuriated by the movie and allegedly launched a cyber attack in November against Sony Pictures Entertainment, which produced the film.

Park’s announcement came amid growing threats from North Korea of retaliation against the anti-Pyongyang leaflet campaign.

The FFNK and some other anti-North Korea activist groups, including the National Action Campaign for Freedom and Democracy in Korea, previously planned to float balloons containing some 5,000 DVDs and USB sticks holding “The Interview” over the DMZ on Thursday. They said their plan was to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the sinking of the South Korean naval frigate Cheonan by a torpedo launched from a North Korean submarine on March 26, 2010.

The military regime repeatedly denied a report by a multinational team of investigators that the warship was sunk by one of its vessels.

In a message carried out by Pyongyang’s state-controlled Korean Central News Agency, Sunday, the communist state warned that it will shoot down balloons transporting propaganda, including the Hollywood film if the South Korean activists carry out the air raid.

The anti-Pyongyang propaganda has prompted domestic division in South Korea because liberals and inter-Korean border town residents have put pressure on the government to stop defectors in their push to “enlighten” North Koreans.

The Ministry of Unification, which deals with inter-Korean affairs, has said it does not have the right to stop anti-North Korean activities, citing the right to freedom of speech under the Constitution.