Anti-North Korea groups to conduct first leaflet launch from sea in 16 years

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Anti-North Korea groups to conduct first leaflet launch from sea in 16 years

Published: 19 Nov. 2024, 15:01 Updated: 19 Nov. 2024, 17:35

LEE SOO-JUNG
[email protected]

Members of the North Korean defectors group Fighters for a Free North Korea hold large balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets in northern Gyeonggi in June. [NEWS1]

Groups of North Korean defectors and relatives of South Koreans abducted to the North were poised to send anti-Pyongyang leaflets from the waters off Gangwon on Tuesday.

The groups planned to depart from Geojin Port in Goseong County, Gangwon, on Tuesday afternoon and launch balloons carrying some 50,000 anti-Pyongyang leaflets toward the North.

It marks the first launch of anti-North flyers from the sea in 16 years since October 2008.

The groups appear to have devised a new tactic to send their flyers to the North, as their previous attempts on the ground have been thwarted by police restrictions and strong resistance from residents living in border-adjacent regions.

The South Korean Coast Guard said there are no legal grounds to stop the vessel from departing. However, fishing vessels used for other purposes must be inspected before sailing.

“A representative from the abductees’ family group visited the station in Gangwon and was consulting authorities" about its plan on Tuesday noon, an official from the Sokcho Coast Guard said. The official said specific measures on how to respond to their attempts to launch anti-North flyers and leaflets had yet to be decided as of 1:30 p.m.

The Sokcho Coast Guard has patrol jurisdiction over four ports in Gangwon: Sokcho Port in the city of Sokcho, Naksan Port in Yangyang County, Jumunjin Port in the city of Gangeung and Geojin Port in Goseong County.

A newly designed anti-Pyongyang flyer by the relatives of South Koreans abducted by North Korea [YONHAP]

This time, the families of the abductees newly designed the flyers and posters, which now include an image of Kim Jong-un behind prison bars and text that reads, “Abductees will return once Kim Jong-un is gone.” The flyers also warned North Korea's leaders that the flyers would continue landing in North Korea.

The defectors and relatives of the abductees claimed that they were wielding “their due and legitimate rights to verify whether their relatives in North Korea are alive or dead” by sending those leaflets.

Park Sang-hak, head of the Fighters for a Free North Korea, defended their actions by saying, “There is no reason for central and local governments to prohibit our actions.”

Park said the regime is “stirring up an internal division in the South” on the issue of anti-Pyongyang leaflets launches. He added that politicians who asked to halt his group’s attempt were "taking sides with the North."

BY LEE SOO-JUNG [[email protected]]