Possession of 'subversive' pro-North Korean content punishable: court

Seoul Central District Court / Korea Times file

By Park Si-soo

Keeping digitized documents with subversive content in an email inbox or sharing them with online communities is punishable, an appellate court ruled.

The Seoul Central District Court's department handling appeal cases made the decision on Wednesday, sentencing a member of an ultra-left political party to a year in prison. The man, surnamed Kim, avoided immediate imprisonment because the court suspended the term for two years.

Kim was prosecuted in October 2013 for possessing video or audio files extolling North Korea's “Juche” ideology or championing the concept of reunification of the two Koreas promoted by the North, in a violation of the National Security Act. He was also charged with distributing these files on internet communities.

According to court documents, the files have content portraying the North's development of long-range missiles and nuclear weapons as a “proud symbol of self-reliance” and the birth of late North Korean leaders Kim Il-sung and Kim Jung-il as “milestone events” in human history.

The court said the purpose of Kim possessing and sharing the files was to “damage the foundation of the nation and security, and basic principles of democracy.” The court said the seriousness of his crime was “not light.”

The verdict came amid heated political debate about the National Security Act, which was enacted in 1948 to keep the South away from then spreading communism. But it was abused by dictators in the 1970s-80s to persecute their political foes.

While liberal forces have tried to scrap the law, arguing it does more harm than good, conservatives want to keep the status quo, claiming North Korea is still a real security threat to the South.