South Korea govt: Distribution of anti-North Korea leaflet has to stop

South Korea said Thursday it planned to push new laws to ban activists from flying anti-Pyongyang leaflets over the border after North Korea threatened to end an inter-Korean military agreement reached in 2018 to reduce tensions if Seoul fails to prevent the protests.

The shift followed remarks earlier in the morning from the powerful sister of the North’s authoritarian leader Kim Jong Un.

Kim Yo Jong  threatened to end the military agreement and said the North could permanently shut a liaison office and an inter-Korean factory park that have been major symbols of reconciliation.

Sending balloons across the border has been a common activist tactic for years, but North Korea considers it an attack on its government.

Defectors and other activists in recent weeks have used balloons to fly leaflets criticizing Kim Jong Un over his nuclear ambitions and dismal human rights record.

While Seoul has sometimes sent police officers to block such activities during times of high tension, it had resisted the North’s calls to fully ban them, saying the activists were exercising their freedoms.

Yoh Sang-key, spokesman of South Korea’s Unification Ministry, said the balloon campaigns were threatening the safety of residents living in the border area and that his government will push for legal changes to “fundamentally solve problems that heighten tensions in border areas.”