Time to revisit National Security Law?
By Kim Young-jin
Some swear it is absolute necessity. Others call it Korea’s version of McCarthyism, the 1950s-era practice in the United States that saw thousands accused of disloyalty without proper evidence. One thing, however, is clear: the long-running debate over the National Security Law persists.
Recent international media attention over the law, which aims to protect the nation from North Korea, has ushered it back into the spotlight. Amid the ongoing debate over whether it restricts freedom of speech, is it time to seriously revisit the issue?
Enforced in 1948, the law sought to protect the country in the run-up to the Korean War, making illegal both communism and recognition of North Korea as a political entity. Six decades later it is still frequently used to investigate those who “praise, disseminate or cooperate with anti-state groups” and thereby pose a threat to democracy.
“The question is whether South Korea is mature enough to have freedom of expression within rule of law despite the legitimate threat from the North,” said Won Jae-chun, a professor at Handong International Law School. “I think we may be mature enough to move on to the next phase.”
Its supporters say the law remains vital given that Pyongyang does all it can to meddle in the South’s affairs, from dispatching agents disguised as defectors to plastering the internet with pro-North propaganda, which can be posted again and again via social networking sites.
In a recent interview with National Public Radio (NPR) of the United States, President Lee Myung-bak staunchly defended its necessity, citing the country’s adjacency to one of “the world’s most well-armed and most belligerent countries.”
“If you consider that fact, and if you are someone living in such a country every day, then you will understand the need to have such laws that will allow us to maintain our way of life,” Lee said, adding that only when cross-border ties improve fundamentally can the necessity of the law be reexamined.
But past authoritarian regimes have used the law, as well as the North Korean threat, to stamp out dissenting voices and crack down on the press. Such precedents have prompted groups such as Amnesty International as well as many domestic factions, to call for its repeal.
Others claim it is coveted purely for political reasons, as Seoul can use its possible abolishment as a carrot for better future relations with the North.
Such arguments have grown louder as the conservative Lee government has looked into an increasing number of cases under the law. Between 2005 through 2009, the prosecutor’s office investigated a yearly average of 58 cases. But the number jumped to 97 last year, NPR reported.
An NPR report said a twenty-something photographer, Park Jong-kun, had to seek treatment for stress after authorities interrogated him for posting a photograph himself in front of a North Korean flag online — an image he said was supposed to lampoon Pyongyang.
Of course, the jump in investigations has coincided with the North’s increasingly provocative behavior. Last year, it killed 50 South Koreans in two separate attacks, sending tensions soaring. It also ordered two agents to infiltrate the South to assassinate the late Hwang Jang-yeop, a high ranking defector.
The use of social media is intensifying suspicion over pro-North activity. The Kim Jong-il regime has recently stepped up its dissemination of propaganda using sites such as Facebook and Twitter, making such information easier to obtain here despite efforts to block it.
Police last year asked the Korea Communications Commission to delete over 80,000 postings praising the North, compared to less that 2,000 two years prior.
The website of Koryo Tours, an established, British-run travel agency that specializes in travel to the North, was blocked earlier this year on the grounds that the content was allegedly Pro-Pyongyang and encouraged South Koreans to travel to the communist state. The company called the charges “disproportionate and unjust.” The blockade has since been lifted.
“South Korea has very legitimate concerns about North Korea,” said Michael Breen, chairman of Insight Communications Consultants and a longtime Korea watcher. “At the same time there’s a need to take a good look at whether cases that come up under the law are truly threats to national security.”
Observers said the issue could be debated more heatedly in the future as the nation undergoes upheaval in its political discourse spurred by the recent contentious by-elections for Seoul mayor and passage of the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement. The new Seoul mayor, Park Won-soon, has been outspoken in the past against the law.
Even President Lee acknowledges the complicated nature of the debate, citing his own personal history. “I recall when I was in college, I would be the one who would call for the abolishment of such laws,” he told the U.S. based radio station with a chuckle.