Tweets With North Korea May Breach Law, South Warns Citizens
South Korea President Lee Myung Bak
Yonhap News via Bloomberg
A YouTube account opened on July 14, with more than 20 video clips, some of which deride South Korean officials including President Lee Myung Bak, seen here.
A YouTube account opened on July 14, with more than 20 video clips, some of which deride South Korean officials including President Lee Myung Bak, seen here. Source: Yonhap News via Bloomberg
South Koreans who post comments on a purported North Korean Twitter Inc. account may fall foul of national security laws that bar the country’s citizens from communicating with their Cold War foes.
“People would have to bear in mind that they could be violating the law” if it is confirmed to be North Korean, Unification Ministry spokeswoman Lee Jong Joo told reporters today in Seoul. The government is investigating the suspected accounts on Twitter and Google Inc.’s YouTube site, she said, without elaborating.
The warning underscores the government’s wariness about exposing its citizens to North Korean propaganda, even after the past two decades have delivered democracy and developed-world living standards in the South as the North became mired in aid- dependency and chronic shortages of food and goods. South Koreans are unable to access North Korean-linked websites, or call telephone numbers across the border.
“It’s almost inconceivable that South Koreans will actually buy into North Korea’s propaganda and start following their ideology,” said Kim Yong Hyun, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul. “Still, the government will feel the need to approach this issue in a conservative manner, given the existing laws.”
Under the law governing exchanges with North Korea, South Koreans need to notify the government when they come in contact with North Koreans and seek prior approval when traveling across the border. Another law on national security bans supporting “anti-state” groups, often interpreted to mean the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.
Arrest Warrant
Prosecutors have secured an arrest warrant for Reverend Han Sang Ryol, who is due to return to South Korea on Aug. 20 after making an unauthorized trip to the North. Han criticized his country’s president during his two-month stay, according to the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.
About 60 websites linked to the North have been restricted since the South Korean government started banning access to such sites in 2004, Min Dae Bong, a chief investigator of cyber security at the National Police Agency, said today by telephone.
Messages condemning South Korea and the U.S. have been posted on Twitter since Aug. 12 under the name “uriminzok,” meaning “our people,” with links to a website run by the North’s state-run Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea. The twitter account, identified as based in Pyongyang, had more than 5,500 followers.
YouTube Too
A YouTube account with a similar name opened on July 14, with more than 20 video clips, some of which deride South Korean officials including President Lee Myung Bak.
Tensions have heightened on the divided peninsula after a South Korean-led multinational team accused the North of torpedoing a South Korean warship in March, killing 46 sailors. Almost one in four South Koreans said they don’t trust the findings of the report, according to a Hankook Ilbo newspaper poll on May 24. The North denies the accusation and has threatened “all-out war.”
Lee in May raised concerns about South Koreans’ loose awareness of security threats posed by North Korea, once branded the “main enemy” before the term was officially dropped in 2004 under the “Sunshine Policy” of engagement.
North Korea’s military is training between 500 and 600 hackers for cyber warfare, according to a statement on the Unification Ministry’s website. The country could be using cyber skills, which it has been advancing for at least 15 years, for spying and spreading propaganda, according to James Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based policy group.
South Korea remains technically at war with North Korea after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a cease-fire, which was never replaced by a peace treaty.
To contact the reporter responsible for this story: Bomi Lim at blim30@bloomberg.net
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