 DPRK demands halt to propaganda leaflets
(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-10-28 07:53 The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) threatened yesterday to expel citizens from the Republic of Korea (ROK) who are working in the DPRK if Seoul fails to stop activists from sending propaganda leaflets across the border, a ROK defense official said. DPRK military officers made the demand to their ROK counterparts during a 20-minute contact at the border, the second official meeting between the two since February. The DRPK officials repeated a threat made during talks earlier in the month to expel the ROK citizens working at two joint reconciliation projects in the DPRK if the leafletting does not stop, said Lee Sang-cheol, head of the ROK's Defense Ministry's DPRK department. The joint projects are an industrial park in the border city of Kaesong and a resort at Diamond Mountain. The two sides agreed in 2004 to end decades of propaganda warfare involving leaflets, loudspeakers and radio broadcasts. However, activists in the ROK continue to send anti-Pyongyang leaflets, and the ROK government cites freedom of speech in its difficulty in stopping them. The ROK military officers told their counterparts that their government had appealed to activists to refrain from sending leaflets. The ROK officials also strongly urged Pyongyang to stop "slandering" the ROK President Lee Myung-bak though its state media, the ministry said. Still, activists in the ROK pushed ahead with their propaganda campaign yesterday, sending helium balloons across the border filled with about 100,000 leaflets denouncing the DPRK's leader, Kim Jong Il. Agencies (China Daily 10/28/2008 page12) |
