MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd April, 2021) The Fighters for a Free North Korea defector group intends to send some 500,000 propaganda leaflets across the border to the North next week despite the recently-imposed ban by Seoul, the Yonhap news agency reported on Friday, citing the group's leader, Park Sang-hak.
The South Korean parliament has approved a bill prohibiting the cross-border flying of critical leaflets to North Korea last December in a bid to protect residents of borderline areas. Violation will be punishable by three years in prison or a $30,000 fine.
The group's leader told the news agency that leaflets containing criticism of North Korea's political system and leader Kim Jong Un would be catapulted at an unannounced time and location from Sunday to May 1.
"The leaflets will include a message criticizing their three-generation hereditary dictatorship and telling them to give out at least the minimum amount of food required for North Korean people," Park said, adding that the leaflets will be launched with 5,000 one-dollar bills and small booklets.
Park, who has also filed a constitutional complaint against Seoul's ban on launching cross-border leaflets, slammed the law as an "infringement on fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution."
A campaign of South-based defectors flying anti-Pyongyang leaflets on balloons across the border launched last June stoked tensions between the neighbors who saw a relative quiet in bilateral relations during the coronavirus outbreak. The move resulted in the North threatening the South with a state-level action and blowing up the joint communications office.
