A group of North Korean defectors prepares to release balloons containing leaflets critical of the North Korean regime in Paju, near the inter-Korean border, on April 6, 2016. The balloons were released despite a recent Supreme Court ruling that the government can keep activists from sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border, citing the safety of residents there. (Yonhap)
The ROK really cannot complain about this considering how private organizations continue to send propaganda leaflets and CDs via balloon into North Korea. The nuisance of dealing with the litter caused by this propaganda war is worth it in my opinion because of the effect the propaganda has within North Korea:
North Korea has sent leaflets and compact discs criticizing President Park Geun-hye and the ruling Saenuri Party to South Korea, police said Wednesday, the latest move in its propaganda campaign.
Police retrieved some 20,000 leaflets and 40 CDs from Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, just northwest of Seoul, at around 5 a.m.
Earlier in the day, dozens of leaflets criticizing South Korea’s military and its joint exercise with the United States were found in central Seoul at around midnight, according to police.
Later on Wednesday, a group of defectors in South Korea sent 300,000 leaflets with messages criticizing the communist regime and 4,000 sheets of local newspapers over the border from Paju, Gyeonggi Province.
The same group had sent another 300,000 leaflets to the North last month. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link.
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]
Members of conservative groups in South Korea launch large plastic balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets into the air in their bid to send them into North Korea in the border town of Paju on March 28, 2016, a campaign that is strongly opposed by the North. (Yonhap)
A water tank on the rooftop of a residential building in Suwon, south of Seoul, was found partially destroyed on Feb. 2, 2016, after what police say was a heavy bundle of propaganda leaflets from North Korea fell on it. Police said they retrieved some 30,000 leaflets that criticized the South Korean president and extolled the North’s recent nuclear test. Pyongyang has been sending propaganda material across the border after Seoul, in retaliation against the Jan. 6 nuclear detonation, resumed anti-North broadcasts though border loudspeakers. (Photo provided by the Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency) (Yonhap)
Leave it to the North Koreans to come up with propaganda balloons this crude:
North Korea has been floating balloons over the border with a cargo of propaganda leaflets denouncing the United States as well as South Korean leader Park Geun-hye, calling her “political filth.”
Recently, the leaflets have been accompanied by genuine filth: cigarette butts and used toilet paper.
According to military and police sources Monday, Pyongyang began sending the balloons carrying leaflets starting from Jan. 12 to retaliate for South Korea’s resumption of propaganda broadcasts at the border earlier that week. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read the rest at the link.
#DPRK propaganda leaflets found in Seoul, other areas — apparently sent from north to south on plastic balloons. pic.twitter.com/SzWlceODVO
— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) January 13, 2016
This photo, taken on Sept. 20, 2015, by the Fighters for Free North Korea, an anti-Pyongyang activist group, shows a balloon that contains leaflets denouncing the hereditary power succession in the North, flying toward North Korea in the South Korean border city of Paju. The group said the next day it sent 200,000 leaflets on 10 balloons to protest against its moves to launch nuclear and missile tests amid opposition from the international community. (Yonhap)
You know the propaganda balloon campaign continues to be effective when the group continues to get this kind of reaction from the Kim regime:
North Korea threatened to attack South Korean activists, Monday, for sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets over the inter-Korean border.
The threat by the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea (CPRK) came three days after a conservative civic group flew about 10,000 leaflets to the North from Cheorwon, Gangwon Province, located close to the border.
The leaflets featured an “execution list after Korean unification” that included North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and the North’s party officials and military brass, along with Kim’s wife, Ri Sol-ju.
“We regard the leaflet distribution as an apparent act of war and are running out of patience with it. Such a small action can lead to the destruction of the group,” the CPRK said.
“The leaflets carry unacceptable and offensive crap. It is another military provocation.” [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but these balloon launches are one of the few ways that the South Koreans are able to get through the information blockade that insulates much of the interior of North Korea. The border area have long been the source of the majority of the refugees due to the proximity of the border and the fact that outside information from China is available via radio and cell phone towers.
This wasn’t the typical way to premiere a film in a new country, but for North Korea this will have to do:
“The Interview” is headed to North Korea, but don’t expect it in Pyongyang theaters anytime soon.
CNN has reported that North Korean defector Lee Min-bok has been launching balloons filled with DVDs of the Hollywood comedy toward the Demilitarized Zone.
Lee described the movie as vulgar and not particularly funny. However, its cinematic quality isn’t the point, Lee told CNN.
“The regime hates this film because it shows Kim Jong-un as a man, not a god,” Lee said to CNN. “He cries and is afraid like us and then he’s assassinated.”
Lee launched the most recent batch of 80,000 DVDs, dollar bills and political leaflets – his fourth such launch – in the middle of the night Saturday near the Korean border, after checking wind speed and direction. [Stars & Stripes]
You can read the rest at the link, but previously North Korea has made a number of threats against refugee activists to try and stop them from launching these balloons.
