Search Results for: fighters for a free north korea

Park Sang-hak’s group Fighters for a Free North Korea are once again sending leaflets to North Korea:

A North Korean defectors’ group said Monday it has sent anti-Pyongyang leaflets and medicine by balloons to the North, as they marked the 73rd anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War.

Park Sang-hak, head of the Fighters for a Free North Korea (FFNK), told Yonhap News Agency that the organization sent 20 balloons carrying some 200,000 leaflets, 10,000 face masks, Tylenol pills and booklets from Gimpo, west of Seoul, at 10 p.m. on Sunday.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but ROK Heads may remember that Park Sang-hak has been the victim of multiple assassination attempts by North Korean agents and assaulted by Korean leftists. He has also had leftists intrude at his house and has been repeatedly arrested and harassed by the Moon administration in effort to stop his group’s activities. 

It will be interesting to see if Park Sang-hak and his team of activists will have to worry about being arrested for their activities by the new Korean government in power:

A North Korean defector group sent masks, Tylenol and vitamin C supplements across the border to the North via balloons on Sunday, citing concerns about North Koreans “suffering in the recent spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.”  
   
The flights will test the resolve of the new Yoon Suk-yeol administration, which inherited from the previous government a law outlawing such activities.  

“We sent 20,000 masks, 15,000 Tylenol pills, and 30,000 vitamin C tablets in 20 large balloons from Pocheon, Gyeonggi, on June 5,” said Park Sang-hak, head of Fighters for a Free North Korea, an organization of North Korean defectors that is critical of the North Korean regime, on Tuesday. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but ROK Heads may remember that Park Sang-hak has been the victim of multiple assassination attempts by North Korean agents and assaulted by Korean leftists. He has also had leftists intrude at his house and has been repeatedly arrested and harassed by the Moon administration in effort to stop his group’s activities. .

One of my favorite defector groups, Fighters for A Free North Korea have been quiet during the Moon administration which is not friendly to defector groups. The Korean police have been sent to stop their balloon launch operations while at the same time the Moon administration allows protesters to blockade the THAAD site which is there to defend the country.

However, it appears that with the steep drop in President Moon’s popularity and the fact more people are realizing that the Kim regime will not denuclearize has given them an opportunity to restart their balloon operations:

The group, Fighters for a Free North Korea, flew 20 balloons carrying 500,000 leaflets from Yeoncheon, north of Seoul, at around 2 a.m., it said.
The balloons carried leaflets slamming the Kim Jong-un regime, as well as one-dollar bills and booklets. 
Park Sang-hak, the head of the organization, said earlier this month that it plans to send the leaflets because the North’s leader “did not keep his promise” to give up the country’s nuclear program.
The Seoul government has urged local activists to stop their leaflet campaigns, saying that they go against efforts to reduce tensions and improve ties with the North.

Yonhap

For those that don’t remember Park Sang-Hak is the leader of the group that has faced assassination attempts by North Korean agents and had leftist thugs assault him to stop his balloon protests.

ROK Drop favorite Park Sang-hak and his group have continued with their propaganda balloon campaign against North Korea in the wake of the Kim regime’s repeated weapons tests:

An organization made up of North Korean escapees and a conservative civic group have distributed some 100-thousand leaflets denouncing the North’s nuclear and missile tests across the border.

Amid the heightened inter-Korean tension, Fighters for Free North Korea and the National Action Campaign for Freedom and Democracy in Korea distributed the leaflets on Monday in Paju, Gyeonggi Province near the border.

The organizations said that the people have the obligation to chastise Kim Jong-un’s threats and provocations regardless of whether or not the South’s government and military engage in psychological warfare.

The organizations then called on the public to join movements to send balloons containing leaflets to the North.

Last Saturday, Fighters for Free North Korea distributed 80-thousand leaflets condemning the North from Gimpo and Paju, as the day marked the sixth anniversary of the sinking of the South Korean naval corvette Cheonan torpedoed by Pyongyang.

Park Sang-hak, the head of the group, said that the organization will continue to send what will be a combined ten million leaflets critical of Pyongyang over the next three months.  [KBS World Radio]

Activist Park Sang-hak is at it again, but he has decided to not send copies of the movie “The Interview” to North Korea if they decide to agree to talks with South Korea:

A group of local and foreign activists has sent balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the inter-Korean border, but DVDs of the controversial film “The Interview” have been excluded, the group’s head said Tuesday.

“As previously announced in November, (we) scattered 100,000 anti-North Korean leaflets near (the border town) of Paju last night,” Park Sang-hak, the head of the Fighters for a Free North Korea, told Yonhap News Agency. “The DVDs of ‘The Interview’ were not included on purpose.”

About 20 American activists, including some from the U.S.-based Human Rights Foundation, also joined the border campaign, according to officials.

Claiming the exclusion of the DVDs as a warning to North Korea, Park said the group will spread a massive amount of “The Interview” DVDs if the North is not cooperative with South Korea’s dialogue offer and its proposal for a reunion of separated families.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

The information war being fought inside North Korea by activists continues:

A group of North Korean defectors in South Korea on Saturday sent hundreds of thousands of anti-Pyongyang leaflets via helium balloons across the inter-Korean border in time for the 105th birth anniversary of the North’s late founder Kim Il Sung.

The Fighters for Free North Korea said its members sent some 300,000 leaflets from a mountain in Gimpo, just west of Seoul, starting at 5 a.m., condemning the North Korean regime and its role in the assassination of leader Kim Jong-un’s elder half brother, Kim Jong-nam, in February in Malaysia.

Besides the leaflets, the 10 gas-filled balloons also contained 2,000 one-dollar bills, 1,000 USB storage devices, 1,000 DVDs and 500 booklets, the group said.

Large placards attached to the balloons featured photos of Kim Jong-un and Kim Jong-nam, which were titled “murderer” and “dead person,” respectively.

The group said the leaflets contained all the details of the assassination of Kim Jong-nam which occurred at Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Feb. 13, as well as criticism of the Pyongyang regime.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link, but ROK Heads may remember that Park Sang-hak is the North Korean defector turned leader of the Fighters For A Free North Korea who the Kim regime has repeatedly threatened, sent their South Korean leftist lackeys to assault, and even tried to assassinate him a few years ago due to his balloon launch efforts.

It looks like the ROK government may have come up with their response to North Korea’s trash balloon attacks even though they deny it:

 North Korea said Sunday it has ordered its artillery corps near the border with South Korea to fully prepare to shoot after the North threatened a “horrible disaster” over the alleged flight of drones over its capital.

North Korea claimed the South had sent unmanned drones over Pyongyang three times this month. 

In a statement carried by its state media, Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of the North’s leader Kim Jong-un, said the North was ready to take a “strong corresponding retaliatory action” in case drones carrying anti-Pyongyang materials are flown again into the North, warning that the “attack time” can come at any time.

In response, South Korea’s defense ministry said any attempts by the North to harm its people would result in the end of the Kim regime. 

On Friday, North Korea’s foreign ministry claimed that South Korean drones carrying leaflets were detected in the night skies over Pyongyang on Oct. 3, as well as Wednesday and Thursday of this week, and threatened to respond with force if such flights occur again. South Korea’s Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun initially denied that the military had sent any drones across the border, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff later said it could not confirm whether the North’s claims were true.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but I wonder if the activist group Fighters for a Free North Korea flew this drone with a wink and a nod from the ROK government?

I have long been a supporter of flooding North Korea with as much outside information as possible to challenge the propaganda the regime indoctrinates its people with. However, the number of defections though up this year are still too small to say the regime is crumbling:

A North Korean soldier defected to South Korea, Tuesday, by walking across the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) on the heavily fortified inter-Korean border. The defection occurred about two weeks after a North Korean resident crossed the maritime border in the Han River estuary on the west coast.

In recent years, North Korea’s elite, including high-level diplomats stationed abroad, have also defected to the South. The latest defector, Ri Il-gyu, fled from Cuba to South Korea in November of last year.

North Korea watchers and defectors residing in South Korea say these defections might indicate increasing economic hardship in the North and a growing desire for freedom among its residents, driven by access to information about the outside world. (…..)

Kim Seung-chul, president of North Korea Reform Radio who defected from the North in 1993, said President Yoon Suk Yeol’s policy of embracing defectors has stirred up complex feelings in the minds of North Koreans.

“South Korea celebrated its first North Korean Defectors’ Day on July 14, and President Yoon’s outreach to 26 million North Korean citizens in his speech is affecting the minds of North Koreans. The loudspeaker campaign and anti-Pyongyang leaflets have also been effective in bringing about change,” Kim said.

Socio-economic factors, such as economic hardship and political oppression, continue to drive North Koreans to flee their country. In the first half of the year, the number of North Korean defectors arriving in South Korea reached 105, a slight increase from 99 in the previous year.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but there has never been a coordinated and sustained effort to flood North Korea with outside information. This is probably the lowest cost way to pressure the Kim regime. Just their reactions to the propaganda balloon launches by the defector group Fighters for a Free North Korea demonstrates that what they are doing is having an impact within North Korea.

The balloon wars between North and South Korea continue:

A North Korean defectors’ group said Thursday it has sent about 10 large plastic balloons carrying propaganda leaflets against the North Korean regime across the border, raising concerns Pyongyang could resume sending trash-filled balloons. 

Filled with 200,000 flyers criticizing the regime, dollar bills and USB sticks loaded with K-pop and trot music, the balloons were floated from Pocheon, north of Seoul, early Thursday, according to Park Sang-hak, head of the Fighters for a Free North Korea (FFNK).

A military source confirmed that some of these balloons have flown into the North but said no signs of retaliatory action were detected yet from the North Korean side, including any launch of ballistic missiles or release of balloons loaded with trash.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but I guess we will see if this leads to more trash attacks from North Korea in response.