South Korea yesterday said that it planned to push new laws to ban activists from flying anti-Pyongyang leaflets over the border after North Korea threatened to end an inter-Korean military agreement reached in 2018 to reduce tensions if Seoul fails to prevent the protests.
The South’s desperate attempt to keep alive a faltering diplomacy will almost certainly trigger debates over freedom of speech in one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies.
Sending balloons across the border has been a common activist tactic for years, but North Korea considers it an attack on its government.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Defectors and other activists in the past few weeks have used balloons to fly leaflets criticizing authoritarian North Korean leader Kim Jong-un over his nuclear ambitions and dismal human rights record.
While Seoul has sometimes sent police to block such activities during times of high tension, it had resisted the North’s calls to fully ban them, saying that the activists were exercising their freedoms.
The shift followed remarks earlier in the morning from Kim’s sister Kim Yo-jong, who threatened to end the military agreement and said that the North could permanently shut a liaison office and an inter-Korean factory park that have been major symbols of reconciliation.
In her statement released through state media, Kim Yo-jong called the defectors involved in the balloon launches “human scum” and “mongrel dogs” who betrayed their homeland, and said that it was “time to bring their owners to account,” referring to the government in Seoul.
South Korean Ministry of Unification spokesman Yoh Sang-key said that the balloon campaigns were threatening the safety of residents living in the border area and that his government would push for legal changes to “fundamentally resolve tension-creating activities.”
Asked whether the ministry would specifically express regret over the North’s threat to abandon inter-Korean agreements, Yoh said: “We will substitute our evaluation [of the North Korean] statement with the announcement of the government position [on the issue].”
South Korea’s ruling liberal party and its satellite party have 180 seats in the 300-seat South Korean National Assembly after triumphing in elections in April, giving it a solid majority to win approval for the proposal in the legislature.
The death of a former head of China’s one-child policy has been met not by tributes, but by castigation of the abandoned policy on social media this week. State media praised Peng Peiyun (彭珮雲), former head of China’s National Family Planning Commission from 1988 to 1998, as “an outstanding leader” in her work related to women and children. The reaction on Chinese social media to Peng’s death in Beijing on Sunday, just shy of her 96th birthday, was less positive. “Those children who were lost, naked, are waiting for you over there” in the afterlife, one person posted on China’s Sina Weibo platform. China’s
‘NO COUNTRY BUMPKIN’: The judge rejected arguments that former prime minister Najib Razak was an unwitting victim, saying Najib took steps to protect his position Imprisoned former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak was yesterday convicted, following a corruption trial tied to multibillion-dollar looting of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state investment fund. The nation’s high court found Najib, 72, guilty on four counts of abuse of power and 21 charges of money laundering related to more than US$700 million channeled into his personal bank accounts from the 1MDB fund. Najib denied any wrongdoing, and maintained the funds were a political donation from Saudi Arabia and that he had been misled by rogue financiers led by businessman Low Taek Jho. Low, thought to be the scandal’s mastermind, remains
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday announced plans for a national bravery award to recognize civilians and first responders who confronted “the worst of evil” during an anti-Semitic terror attack that left 15 dead and has cast a heavy shadow over the nation’s holiday season. Albanese said he plans to establish a special honors system for those who placed themselves in harm’s way to help during the attack on a beachside Hanukkah celebration, like Ahmed al-Ahmed, a Syrian-Australian Muslim who disarmed one of the assailants before being wounded himself. Sajid Akram, who was killed by police during the Dec. 14 attack, and
VISHNU VANDALS: A Cambodian official accused Thailand of destroying a statue in a disputed border area, with video showing the Hindu structure being torn down The Thai military said ceasefire talks with Cambodia, set to begin yesterday, are expected to conclude with a meeting of the countries’ defense ministers on Saturday, as the two sides seek to end weeks of deadly clashes. The talks started at 4pm in Thailand’s Chanthaburi Province, which borders Cambodia. The Thai Ministry of Defense outlined several demands to be discussed ahead of the bilateral meeting of the General Border Committee (GBC) on Saturday. If secretariat-level discussions fail to reach agreement on key technical frameworks such as troop deployments, the Thai side would not proceed with the GBC meeting or sign any agreement on
RSS