Tag: Park Sang-hak

North Korea Vows to Kill Human Rights Activist

| January 12, 2015

This isn’t the first or will be the last of the assassination threats that North Korea has made against balloon activist Park Sang-hak:

north korea balloon image

North Korea issued a death threat against a defector-turned-activist after he announced a plan to send copies of a satirical Hollywood film about a plot to kill Kim Jong-un into North Korea.

The South Korean government said Thursday it will take necessary measures to protect its citizens.

Last week, Park Sang-hak, who heads the Fighters for a Free North Korea, said he planned to send 100,000 DVDs and USB memory sticks containing the movie “The Interview” via balloons across the border into North Korea to destroy the personality cult build around Kim Jong-un.

He said the Sony Pictures’ movie will have Korean subtitles and he will start sending the balloons as early as late January.

According to the Ministry of Unification, the North aired an ultimatum against Park on Wednesday. Using extremely cruel language, the North’s Pyongyang Broadcasting Station said Park must “go to hell.”

It promised to “bleed him out and gut his intestines.”

“In order to end this tragic reality of national division forced upon our people and homeland by outside forces, we must ruthlessly eliminate those maniacs who encourage inter-Korean confrontations,” the broadcast said. “And the Korean people select Park as the first target.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but hopefully Park Sang-hak has taken the appropriate security measures to protect himself from North Korean assassins.  Back in 2011 a North Korean assassin was arrested before he could carry out his plot to kill Park with poison needles.

Activist to Drop Copies of “The Interview” Over North Korea By Balloon

| January 2, 2015

ROK Drop favorite Park Sang-hak is living up to his word and has decided to drop “The Interview” over North Korea via balloon:

North Korean defector Park Sang Hak stands with activists who plan to send anti-North Korea leaflets during a rally near the Imjingak Pavilion near the border village of Panmunjom, in Paju, north of Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, Oct. 25, 2014. North Korea opened fire on Oct. 10 after activists floated propaganda balloons across the border, following through on a previous threat to attack. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

A South Korean activist said Wednesday that he will launch balloons carrying DVDs of Sony’s “The Interview” toward North Korea to try to break down a personality cult built around dictator Kim Jong Un.

The comedy depicting an assassination attempt on Kim is at the center of tension between North Korea and the U.S., with Washington blaming Pyongyang for crippling hacking attacks on Sony Entertainment. Pyongyang denies that and has vowed to retaliate.

Activist Park Sang-hak said he will start dropping 100,000 DVDs and USBs with the movie by balloon in North Korea as early as late January. Park, a North Korean defector, said he’s partnering with the U.S.-based non-profit Human Rights Foundation, which is financing the making of the DVDs and USB memory sticks of the movie with Korean subtitles.

Park said foundation officials plan to visit South Korea around Jan. 20 to hand over the DVDs and USBs, and that he and the officials will then try to float the first batch of the balloons if weather conditions allow.  [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link, but I guess we will see if North Korea tries to send out their leftist allies in South Korea to try and stop this balloon launch later in the month.

Activist Groups Vows to Drop Copies of “The Interview” Over North Korea

| December 22, 2014

A ROK Drop favorite Park Sang-hak and his activist allies plan on dropping copies of the now cancelled Hollywood movie “The Interview” over North Korea if they can get a copy of the film:

north korea balloon image

Human Rights Foundation founder Thor Halvorssen says the group plans on buying copies of “The Interview” — which depicts the assassination of North Korea’s leader — and including them in upcoming balloon drops over North Korea. The group is waiting to hear whether Sony will release the movie in an alternate format since it canceled plans to release the film in theaters. (On Wednesday, Sony said it had no further plans for release.)

For the last two years, the Human Rights Foundation has been working with groups in South Korea to drop balloons into the North that are filled with banned items.

HRF has teamed up with Park Sang Hak, who worked for the North Korean government before defecting to South Korea. He is now the chairman of an activist group, Fighters for a Free North Korea, and has successfully led multiple balloon launches into North Korea.

Park told CNNMoney it’s a wider effort to help North Koreans gain access to different perspectives. And that perspective may soon include the controversial film that North Korea has condemned.  [CNN]

You can read more at the link, but this is another possible response to the Sony hack which would be to help fund defector groups to get subversive media into North Korea.

Effort to Stop Activist Balloon Launches with Aviation Law Fails

| October 23, 2014

If the balloon launches were stopped by this aviation law than everyone who releases a balloon in Korea should be arrested as well:

north korea balloon image

The South Korean government has concluded that it can’t stop the scattering of anti-North Korea leaflets with the Aviation Act, an official said Thursday.

Those opposed to the spread of leaflets via balloons have argued that the legislation may provide a legal ground to tackle the civilian campaign, which they say hampers inter-Korean ties.

The law bans any unauthorized flight in the Demilitarized Zone and other controlled areas.

The transpiration ministry, which is in charge of the matter, concluded that the legislation can’t be applied to the activists’ actions, according to the unification ministry official

“The large-sized balloons used to scatter the leaflets don’t have any device for land-based control, meaning they are not considered ultra-small flight apparatuses,” the official told reporters on background.

He added there is no change in the government’s stance that it has no legal grounds to block the spread of the leaflets across the heavily armed border.

A group of conservative activists here revealed plans to send leaflets critical of the North’s leadership and system into the North from Imjingak, a park on the border, on Saturday.

The leaflet issue is a pretext for North Korea to avoid agreed-upon high-level talks with South Korea. [Yonhap]

This is just another example of how the engagement crowd wants to appease North Korean demands for the sake of talks where the North Koreans than make even more demands for little or nothing in return.  As long as the appeasement crowd continues to try and push the Park administration to give into North Koreans demands for little or nothing in return they will continue to make them.

Shots Exchanged On the Korean DMZ After Activists Launch Balloons

| October 10, 2014

Here is another example of tit-for-tat occurring on the DMZ:

The two Koreas exchanged machine gun fire Friday, Seoul’s military said, after the North launched shots toward balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets floated by South Korean civic activists across the tense border.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said some of the North Korean shots landed south of the border, prompting the South’s military to fire back in response.

No further details were available, including whether there were any casualties on either side.

Seoul’s military officials corrected earlier reports that artillery had been used in the clash, saying that it’s wrong.

They said shots could be heard from north of the border at around 3:55 p.m., about two hours after a group of South Korean activists flew 200,000 anti-North Korean leaflets in balloons in a border village of Paju.

The officials added that shots apparently fired by anti-aircraft machine guns were discovered south of the border around 4:50 p.m. There were no reports of South Korean casualties, they said.

South Korea’s military fired back about 40 rounds from its K-6 machine gun 10 minutes after issuing an warning message at 5:30 p.m. [Yonhap]

This may have been another example of a DMZ tit-for-tat, but the threat to these balloons activists from the North Korean regime is very real.  Park Sang-hak the North Korean defector who is the leader of this activist group is the one in the most danger.  Park is the man who the Kim regime has repeatedly threatened, sent their South Korean leftist lackeys to assault him, and even tried to assassinate him a few years ago due to his balloon launch efforts.  Despite all this Park continues to send his balloons into North Korea which must be having an effect considering the reaction of the Kim regime to these launches.

Fighters For Free North Korea Launches Latest Balloon Campaign

| August 6, 2014

A ROK Drop favorite, Park Sang-hak and his group Fighters for Free North Korea have just launched their latest balloon campaign:

A group of activists launched big balloons carrying leaflets across the border with the North, condemning the communist regime’s recent series of missile and artillery firings.

The 10 propaganda balloons, launched by seven North Korean defector-turned-activists at the border city of Paju toward the North, carried anti-Pyongyang leaflets as well as one thousand U.S. dollar bills, meant to entice North Koreans.

Banners saying “What Kim Jong-un really fears is 20 million North Korean people getting to know the facts and the truth” also dangled from the balloons in protest against the North’s repeated military provocations.

The North fired about 100 artillery shells near the inter-Korean East Sea border a day earlier after test-launching two short-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea the previous day in its recent series of military provocations near the border.

“Since the start of this year, the North fired missiles and artillery shells on dozens of occasions, firing away (money) worth three months of food for North Korean people,” Park Sang-hak, the head of the activist group Fighters for Free North Korea, said. “We decided to launch the anti-Pyongyang leaflets since the government did not take any action.”  [Yonhap via One Free Korea]

ROK Heads may remember that Park Sang-hak is the North Korean defector turned activist who the Kim regime has repeatedly threatened, sent their South Korean leftist lackeys to assault him, and even tried to assassinate him a few years ago due to his balloon launch efforts.  Despite all this Park continues to send his balloons into North Korea which must be having an effect considering the reactions of the Kim regime to the launches.

North Korean Threatens Retaliation Against Activists Balloons

| February 28, 2011

Besides the usual bombastic statements about turning Seoul into a “Sea of Flames” in response to the upcoming Foal Eagle/Key Resolve exercise, here is what I continue to find satisfaction in the fact that this continues to really anger the Kim regime:

Earlier Sunday, the North’s military warned that it would destroy South Korean border towns if Seoul continues to allow activists to launch propaganda leaflets toward the communist country.

In a separate statement carried by KCNA, it accused South Korean activists and lawmakers of flying balloons carrying hundreds of thousands of leaflets and DVDs critical of North Korea’s government on the North’s most important national holiday, an apparent reference to leader Kim Jong Il’s 69th birthday, which was Feb. 16.  [Associated Press]

The continual angry responses from the North Korean regime against the balloon launches continues to be a sign that this continues to be an effective way to counter the regime propaganda apparatus within North Korea.  I would hope though that the South Korean military is taking these threats seriously because I would not be surprised if the North Koreans try something in the coming weeks in response to the balloon launches like they are threatening.

Activists Continue to Send Leaflets to North Korea

| December 8, 2008

North Korean human rights activist Park Sang-hak wasn’t lying, he was back out there today sending up his propaganda balloons into North Korea:

Civic groups fly anti-N. Korea leaflets

Dec. 3, PAJU, South Korea — Members of conservative civic groups fly balloons carrying anti-North Korea leaflets in the South Korean border town of Paju, north of Seoul, on Dec. 3. In the leaflets, the civic groups urged the North to repatriate the hundreds of South Koreans abducted by North Korea since the end of the Korean War in 1953. (Yonhap)

Leftists Brawl with Activists over Propaganda Leaflets

| December 3, 2008

North Korea has been complaining for months about the balloons filled with anti-Kim Jong-il propaganda leaflets that a coalition of North Korean defector, Christian, abductee, and Christian groups have been sending over the DMZ and into North Korea. North Korea has even threatened war over the leaflets showing how irritated the regime is with the leaflets which is probably a sign the leaflets are having its desired effect of undermining the regime. Well now the usual suspects have mobilized to try and stop these groups from sending their leaflets into North Korea:

South Korean groups sent propaganda leaflets critical of North Korea over the strictly controlled Demilitarized Zone on Tuesday as they scuffled with liberal activists who desperately tried to stop the launch.

The groups sent off a large balloon carrying 10,000 leaflets at a spot near the west coast, a day after North Korea tightened border traffic with South Korea in an initial retaliatory step against Seoul’s hardline policy toward Pyongyang.

The groups had prepared ten balloons to carry 100,000 leaflets but managed to send just one after clashing with dozens of liberal activists looking to prevent further damage to inter-Korean relations. The opposing members stole the remaining leaflets from a truck parked nearby.

One activist was hospitalized and another was taken into police custody, according to police officials.

Rarely seen since the Cold War, leaflets have recently emerged as a divisive issue between the two Koreas. Relations between Pyongyang and Seoul have worsened since the launch of conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in February. (…)

North Korea has repeatedly threatened to cut all ties with Seoul if it fails to stop the conservative activists from sending the leaflets. Seoul also asked them to stop in order not to further enrage the North.

Pyongyang has mobilized soldiers en mass in a campaign to collect leaflets that have fallen on western coastal towns near the border, Washington-based Radio Free Asia reported earlier in the day, citing Chinese sources well-informed on North Korea.

Experts say the leaflets have struck a nerve because they often contain information on the 66-year-old Kim’s reported health problems, of which most North Koreans are likely unaware. (…)

Many of the leaflets have repeatedly criticized Kim for enjoying a lavish life while his people suffering from chronic food shortages, and urge North Koreans to rise up against the “killer whose death is approaching.”

The leaflets sometimes are mixed with U.S. dollar bills or Chinese yuan notes to entice North Koreans to pick them up. In the impoverished nation, one can live a month on one dollar, according to Park Sang-hak, a North Korea defector whose group has been sending the leaflets for about four years. [Yonhap]

It is interesting that soldiers are having to scour the countryside to look for balloons because it means the regime does not trust the population to turn in the leaflets in fear they may actually read them.

There is a great article in the Washington Post that tells more about one of the leaders sending out these propaganda leaflets. Park Sang-hak is a North Korean defector that actually worked in a propaganda department for North Korea before defecting. His hatred of Kim Jong-il is motivated by the fact his two uncles were killed and his fiance’ sexually abused because of his defection. Here is what Park had to say about the leftist groups that assaulted him:

It took more than an hour of pushing and shoving, and the help of a phalanx of South Korean policemen, before Park and others could launch a single balloon.

After it had soared into a cloudless sky and was carried north by the breeze, Park taunted his adversaries.

“You are the running dogs of Kim Jong Il!” he shouted. “You are trash!”

“You are afraid of unification!” they shouted back.

Park replied, “I am going to launch balloons every day, if the weather permits.”

Ironically if anyone is anti-unification it is the leftist groups that demand the South Korean government continue to subsidize Kim Jong-il’s lifestyle. I think Park would do well to contact some of the veteran organizations that protected the MacArthur Statue in Incheon when these leftists groups tried to tear it down a few years back. I’m sure there is nothing more satisfying for some of these retired ROK Marine Corps types then getting the chance to bash some of these leftist groups heads in.