Police tighten security for defectors sending anti-N.K. leaflets

By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, Jan. 9 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's police beefed up security for North
Korean defectors sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets to the North amid warnings from
the communist state and increasing personal threats, the defectors said Friday.
Despite government appeals, defectors organizations have been sending balloons
attached with propaganda leaflets criticizing North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's
economic mismanagement, lavish lifestyle and human rights abuses. In a fresh
batch of the flyers set to be flown next month, North Korean bills will be
inserted to lure North Korean citizens to pick them up.
North Korea has repeatedly demanded that the South Korean government ban the
activists' propaganda campaign. Warnings intensified last year amid suspended
inter-Korean dialogue.
The defectors said they are receiving a growing number of threatening phone calls
and that South Korea's spy agency, National Intelligence Service, and the police
have recently increased the number of security guards for them.
"I heard that the National Intelligence Service sent a letter seeking cooperation
with the Unification Ministry on the 30th of last month to strengthen security
for me," Choi Sung-yong, a North Korean defector and head of Family Assembly
Abducted to North Korea, said.
Park Sang-hak, also a defector and head of Fighters For Free North Korea, said
four police officers now protect him, compared to two until last month. The
threatening phone calls were mostly traced to China, he said.
Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyoun neither denied nor confirmed the
claim, saying he "cannot comment on it."
Since 2004, defectors and families of South Korean citizens abducted by the North
have been sending the propaganda leaflets across the border that call leader Kim
a womanizer who relishes expensive wine and cars and describe how defectors enjoy
South Korea's prosperous capitalism.
The defectors started to insert U.S. one dollar bills in the flyers in April last
year. For the next batch of balloons, they said they will replace them with North
Korean currency, following rumors that North Korean authorities are incarcerating
those who pick up the attached dollar bills.
The Unification Ministry, while urging the defectors to refrain from the leaflet
campaign, says there is no law that can stop them.
It was not yet clear whether it was legitimate for the defectors to bring in
North Korean money. North Korean currency is allowed into the country only for
trade purposes, and one must first receive government approval to do so. Failure
to abide by the restrictions can result in 3-year jail sentence or a 20 million
won (US$15,060) fine.
The defectors said the North Korean bills will be acquired through Chinese
merchants operating in North Korea and other available sources.
North Korea has persistently protested the leaflet campaign last year, in what
appeared to be efforts to curb possible internal tumult amid rumors of leader
Kim's ill health. The reclusive leader, 66, suffered a stroke in August, Seoul
and Washington officials say.
In October, the North's official Korean Central News Agency blasted the leaflets
as a "malicious slander" against the country.
Lt. Gen. Kim Yong-chol, head of the policy planning office of the North's
National Defense Commission, also openly denounced the leaflet campaign when he
met with South Korean businessmen operating in the joint industrial complex in
the North's border town, Kaesong, in December.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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