Court upholds 3-year prison term for pro-N. Korea activist

SEOUL, Dec. 19 (Yonhap) -- An appellate court upheld Friday a lower court's ruling that sentenced a pro-North Korea activist to three years in jail for violating the anti-communist National Security Law.

Yoon Ki-jin, 33, chairman of a South Korean-side student union for reunification
of the Korean Peninsula, was convicted of praising North Korea's regime and
sending a representative to receive instructions from the student union
headquarters in the North.
"Yoon has praised North Korea's dictatorship, ignoring the poor state of its
people, claiming he advocates reunification of the two Koreas," presiding judge,
Choi Seoung-joon of the Seoul High Court, said in the verdict. "His contacts with
the North's organization threatened national security and the existence of South
Korea, which possibly faces Pyongyang's military attack."
Choi added that the student union in Seoul is recognized as a subordinate agency
of its headquarters in Pyongyang.
Yoon had been on the run since he was accused of sending a delegate, now his wife
Hwang Sun, to Pyongyang in 1998 to receive the North's order. He was arrested in
March this year, and the Seoul District Court sentenced him to a three-year
prison term and three-year suspension of civic rights.
"His punishment should be heavier as he has been at large for almost 10 years,
but South Korean society has become democratic enough to embrace even extremists
like him, and the inter-Korean relationship has also remarkably changed compared
to a decade ago," the appellate court said.
"The court has not taken into account improved international relations, including
the eased U.S. and North Korea relationship," the defendant's wife said after the
verdict. "Under the conservative Lee Myung-bak government, there is no hope at
all."
brk@yna.co.kr
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