A bipartisan caucus of the U.S. House of Representatives said it will hold a public hearing on April 15 on ongoing South Korean human rights issues, including the recent ban on sending leaflets into North Korea.
The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, previously known as the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, said on Thursday that the upcoming hearing’s topic will be “Civil and Political Rights in the Republic of Korea: Implications for Human Rights on the Peninsula.” The commission added that it will examine the role of the right to freedom of expression and the exercise of other rights in the broader context of inter-Korean, U.S.-ROK relations, and U.S.-DPRK relations.
“Recently, international attention has focused on a controversial ‘anti-leaflet law’ passed by the National Assembly last December,” the commission said. “Some observers have expressed concerns that the law could interfere with efforts to promote human rights in North Korea, including programs funded by the U.S. government, such as by disseminating USB drives containing information about the outside world.”
According to the commission, five witnesses have been called in to testify, including Gordon Chang, author of “Losing South Korea” and “Nuclear Showdown,” Lee In-ho, former Ambassador of South Korea to the Russian Federation, John Sifton, Asia Advocacy Director at Human Rights Watch, Suzanne Scholte, Vice Co-Chair of the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, and Jessica Lee, Senior Research Fellow for East Asia at Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
The South Korean government said they are aware of the hearing but did not attach much meaning to it. “The Tom Lantos Commission does not have the authority to make a legislative decision, and it is more like a policy study group,” a spokesperson from the Ministry of Unification said. “That commission’s hearing will be a lot different from what it is like here in Korea’s National Assembly.” According to South Korean media, some from the ruling party expressed discomfort, saying that the commission represents interference in domestic affairs.
The so-called “anti-leaflet law” refers to the revision made to the Development of Inter-Korean Relations Act, which was passed in December last year and went into effect on March 30 this year. The bill makes it a crime punishable by up to three years in prison or by a fine not exceeding 30 million won ($26,761) to send pamphlets and storage devices such as flash drives, money, and other financial benefits to the North without the South Korean government’s permission.
Human rights activists, including North Korean defector groups, have sent leaflets, as well as other items like U.S. dollar bills and USB drives via large balloons from areas just south of the inter-Korean border for many years. Oftentimes, leaflets contain information about Kim Jong-un, his father, and grandfather’s status as dictators and their corruption, along with news of what is actually going on around the world, especially in South Korea.
North Korea has criticized the South Korean government for allowing activists to send leaflets to the North. South Korea’s Moon Jae-in administration argued that such activities had long exposed South Korean residents in border areas to physical danger, as North Korea often tried to shoot down the balloons to stop them from crossing the border. This was the stated reason that the ruling Democratic Party (DP) proposed this bill in June 2020.
However, the South Korean opposition call it a disgraceful submission to Pyongyang’s will by Seoul, and human rights groups say it stifles freedom of expression and humanitarian work. In fact, Song Young-gil, a lawmaker from the ruling DP, introduced the bill within a month of a blunt remark from Kim Yo-jong, Kim Jong-un’s younger sister, demanding a halt to the balloon launches. Conservatives in South Korea criticized the bill and often call it “a disgraceful submission to Kim Yo-jong’s order.”
During that time, Kim labeled defectors in South Korea as “human scum” and “mongrel dogs” for sending items across the border. “Human scum little short of wild animals who betrayed their own homeland are engrossed in such unbecoming acts to imitate men,” she said. “They are sure to be called mongrel dogs as they bark where they should not. Now that the mongrel dogs are doing others harm, it is time to bring their owners to account.”
She even laid out the consequence that the Moon administration would face if it allowed defectors to continue to send leaflets to North Korea.
“If they fail to take corresponding steps for the senseless act against the fellow countrymen, they had better get themselves ready for the possibility of the complete withdrawal from the already desolate Kaesong Industrial Park following the stoppage of tours of Mt. Kumgang, or the shutdown of the north-south joint liaison office whose existence only adds to trouble, or the scrapping of the north-south agreement in the military field which is hardly of any value.”
On the same day, South Korea’s Ministry of Unification released a statement saying it will come up with measures that will ban people from sending leaflets to North Korea. “The ROK government carried out measures to suspend the act of flying leaflets to the North on numerous occasions, taking note that these actions can raise tensions in the border area,” it said. “Taking the circumstances comprehensively, the ROKG (South Korea’s government) has been reviewing effective improvement plans that will fundamentally resolve tension-building activities in the border area.” It added that a “considerable amount” of the distributed leaflets have been found in the South, thus polluting the environment and imposing burden on border area residents who have to collect them.
South Korea’s opposition lawmakers tried to block the bill, but the DP, along with other liberal members, who control a majority of the National Assembly, was able to pass it unliterally, without consent from the conservative party.
The U.S. Department of State, in its annual report released earlier this year titled “2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Republic of Korea,” specifically pointed out issues surrounding the anti-leaflet law. “Significant human rights issues included: restrictions on the freedom of expression, including criminalizing the sending of leaflets and other materials into North Korea, and the existence of criminal libel laws; corruption; and laws criminalizing consensual same-sex sexual conduct between adults in the military,” the report said.
The report said that human rights advocates and opposition political leaders criticized the amendment as an infringement of the freedom of expression. “Former UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon also called on the government to ‘rectify’ human rights concerns raised by the amendment,” it added.
However, “(S)enior government officials and ruling-party lawmakers defended the amendment, arguing that the right to freedom of expression is not absolute and must be balanced against national security concerns.”
Lawyers for Human Rights and Unification of Korea, a group based in Seoul, shared this concern and argued that the law could violate the constitution. “The government can temporarily ban the disseminating of leaflets to protect the people’s safety, but to completely ban them from doing so by introducing a law to punish them would infringe on the fundamental concept of freedom of expression,” the group said. “It is unconstitutional.”
In addition, many domestic and international human rights and national security experts expressed concern over the anti-leaflet law.
“The South Korean government should abandon its misguided strategy of trying to win favor with Kim Jon-un by cracking down on its own citizens,” said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch in December. “Promoting human rights is not at odds with effective foreign policy.” He will be one of the witnesses who will be participating in the hearing next week.
“The ultimate goal of engaging North Korea is to lead the country to open up and make positive reforms,” Chun Young-woo, a former national security adviser to President Lee Myung-bak, said on YouTube. “Is the South Korean government trying to deny the North Koreans the right to information and support the oppressive regime?”
Meanwhile, the date of the hearing, April 15, is North Korea’s annual holiday called the “Day of the Sun,” which celebrates the anniversary of the birth of Kim Il-sung, the founder and “Eternal President of North Korea.”
