South Korea hit by human rights watch over leaflet crackdown

A high official at a worldwide human rights group criticized South Korea for attempting to close down two activist teams who despatched anti-Kim Jong Un leaflets by balloon throughout the border into North Korea.

Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, stated a choice by South Korea to revoke the licenses and search prosecution for the teams is a blow in opposition to the marketing campaign to carry North Korea accountable for its human rights violations for the sake of political expediency.

The strikes in opposition to the activists are “a blatant violation of freedom of association that cannot be justified with vague appeals to border security and relations with the North,” he stated in an announcement Thursday.

His feedback got here the day after South Korea’s Unification Ministry stated the federal government plans to cancel the licenses of two teams — Fighters for Free North Korea and KeunSaem — that despatched balloons with leaflets throughout the border, and ask prosecutors whether or not they can deliver expenses on suspicion of violating an inter-Korean trade regulation. Officials from the teams haven’t responded to requests to remark.

‘Wicked Act’

While hundreds of thousands of leaflets have been flown throughout the border for greater than a decade, Pyongyang in latest days slammed South Korean President Moon Jae-in for letting teams that embrace North Korean defectors ship the leaflets into its territory.

On Tuesday, it lower off communications hyperlinks arrange with its neighbor about two years in the past, in an expression of its anger. Kim Yo Jong, the youthful sister of North Korea’s chief, beforehand accused South Korea of tolerating a “sordid and wicked act of hostility.”

North Korea Cuts Off Communications With Seoul Over Leaflets

Moon’s workplace expressed “deep regrets” over activists teams that ship leaflets condemning Kim Jong Un towards North Korean territory and can actively search authorized procedures to punish them, Kim You-geun, a senior official on the National Security Council, stated at a Thursday briefing.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry in a textual content message Thursday stated its official place hasn’t modified from the day before today, when it introduced it will search authorized motion in opposition to the 2 teams.

“Rather than kowtow to threats from Kim Jong Un’s sister, South Korea should call for Pyongyang to open uncensored and unrestricted channels for communication between people across the 38th parallel,” Robertson stated.

Moon, a former human rights lawyer, has made a recent push to revive financial and different exchanges with North Korea after his ruling progressive camp scored a supermajority in parliamentary elections in April.

But Moon doesn’t have a lot he can supply North Korea with out prompting a blowup from the Trump administration, which has repeatedly rejected Seoul’s requires sanctions aid. The US has refused to loosen up United Nations penalties and different measures in opposition to the regime with out larger commitments on arms discount from Kim Jong Un.

The United Nations particular rapporteur for North Korea has stated the nation systematically abuses the rights of its residents and denies them fundamental freedoms, whereas the US State Department accuses Pyongyang of a brutal marketing campaign to crush dissent by means of political prisons, torture and executions.

South Korean activist teams have accused Moon of downplaying abuses north of the border in order to not upset relations with Kim Jong Un.