Warrant issued for pro-North activist
Prosecutors yesterday received an arrest warrant issued by a local court for a pro-North civic activist who illegally visited Pyongyang to pay her respects to the late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il during the official mourning period.The South Korean government officially prohibited all individual private mourning delegations to the North, except two high-profile widows - Lee Hee-ho, first lady of late president Kim Dae-jung, and Hyun Jeong-eun, wife of the late Hyundai Group Chairman Chung Mong-hun - who made their condolence visits to the North to reciprocate the North’s delegation for their husbands’ deaths.
The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday said that they will arrest Hwang Hye-ro, a leader of the Korea Alliance for Autonomous Unification and Democracy, on charges of making an unauthorized visit to the North, violating the National Security Law.
Hwang went to Pyongyang from her residence in France via Beijing on Dec. 24. She was photographed by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency on Dec. 27 paying respects in front of the coffin. Prosecutors discovered that Hwang left Pyongyang yesterday morning and transferred flights in Beijing, bound for Rome.
By Kim Hee-jin [heejin@joongang.co.kr]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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