Activists should stop acts that threaten residents' safety, cause tension
North Korea demanded Thursday that the South keep defectors from the North from flying anti-Pyongyang leaflets into the communist state. Kim Yo-jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and first deputy director of the North's ruling Workers' Party, made the demand in a statement in the Rodong Sinmun, the party's mouthpiece newspaper. Kim threatened to dismantle an inter-Korean factory park in North Korea's border city of Gaeseong, shut down a joint liaison office there and scrap the no-hostility military accord signed in September 2018.
North Korea's extremely sensitive reaction to the anti-North leaflets is hardly new. Still, the latest show of displeasure deserves additional attention because it came while the Moon Jae-in administration is going all-out to find a breakthrough in the stymied denuclearization talks and stalled inter-Korean relationship. It could become another negative factor in reopening denuclearization talks and breaking the South-North stalemate.
The North has the right to call for the stoppage of flying in leaflets, because the discontinuation was a part of the inter-Korean summit agreement in April 2018. The South Korean government, however, finds it somewhat difficult to block it thoroughly because of the controversy over infringing on freedom of expression. In October 2014, North Korean soldiers fired a shot at giant balloons that contained leaflets, sparking a heated debate on what should come first ― freedom of expression or the safety of inter-Korean border residents. There is a court precedent that allows the government to restrain dropping leaflets, but it is not backed up by definite legality.
The government needs to step up efforts to legislate a ban on sending leaflets while seeking public consensus on this issue. All parties involved should approach the controversy over anti-North flyers not just from the aspect of freedom of expression or related laws but from that of easing inter-Korean tension and establishing a peace regime on this divided peninsula.
Already, the ties between the Koreas can hardly go lower. Both sides should refrain from words and acts that may provoke each other. North and South should narrow the gulf and open the way for resuming dialogue.