College students in North Korea military uniform give anti-Moon performance

College students in North Korean military uniforms, holding guns and a North Korean flag, give a performance on Gwanganri Beach in Busan, Wednesday, to denounce the Moon Jae-in administration's policies. / Captured from YouTube

By Kim Rahn

A group of college students wearing North Korean military uniforms staged an anti-government performance on a beach in Busan, Wednesday, prompting surprised vacationers to call the police.

According to Busan Nambu Police Station, Friday, they received reports at about 2 p.m. Wednesday that some people wearing North Korean uniforms and holding guns and a North Korean flag were walking on Gwanganri Beach.

The people ― seven men and a woman ― walked from the water toward the sand and handed out anti-government leaflets, police said.

According to police, they were members of the National College Students' Council, a group that gained attention in December with posters satirizing and criticizing President Moon Jae-in's policies.

The students said the stunt, which they live-streamed on YouTube, was a move to criticize the government's failure to deal with a recent incident in which a North Korean boat managed to cross the maritime boarder before docking at South Korea's Samcheok Port.

Police said the students' actions did not violate the National Security Law, according to a Supreme Court ruling in a previous similar case. “The guns they were holding were also toys,” a police officer said. “We decided not to further investigate the case.”

The student group's name was borrowed from a progressive student activists' group in the 1980s that led the pro-democracy movement. Many officials of the liberal Moon administration were from the old group, and the new right-wing group used the name for satirical purposes.

In December, the group placed anti-government posters on notice boards at more than 100 universities nationwide, satirically calling Moon a “king” and ridiculing his policies on various issues.