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| ▲ This undated photo, provided by Fighters for Free North Korea, shows one of the balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets that the North Korean defectors' group claimed it sent toward North Korea across the inter-Korean border. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) |
(LEAD) N Korea-leaflet campaign
(LEAD) N. Korea warns of 'shower of shells,' military clashes over anti-Pyongyang leaflet campaign
(ATTN: UPDATES with English-language statement by KCNA, background throughout)
By Kim Soo-yeon
SEOUL, Nov. 8 (Yonhap) -- North Korea threatened Wednesday to "pour a shower of shells" into South Korea over anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets in the latest bellicose rhetoric amid lingering tensions on the divided peninsula.
In September, South Korea's Constitutional Court struck down a law banning the cross-border leaflet campaign, saying it excessively restricts the right to freedom of expression.
The Ministry of Unification, which handles inter-Korean affairs in Seoul, has launched a procedure to repeal the guidelines banning floating balloons carrying propaganda leaflets in all areas of South Korea.
North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) warned that the psychological warfare, including the anti-Pyongyang leafleting campaign, will act as a "detonator" for the end of South Korea.
"It is the stand of the enraged revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK to pour a shower of shells into the bulwark of the region of south Korean puppets as well as the base of leaflet-scattering by surpassing the previous counteraction," Kim Yun-mi, a North Korean commentator, said in an English-language article carried by the KCNA.
Kim called the leafleting campaign high-level psychological warfare and a preemptive attack conducted before the start of war.
"There is no guarantee such military conflicts as in Europe and the Middle East would not break out on the Korean peninsula," Kim said, apparently referring to Russia's war in Ukraine and the armed conflict between Israel and Hamas.
For years, North Korean defectors in the South and conservative activists have sent leaflets to the North via balloon to help encourage North Koreans to eventually rise up against the Pyongyang regime.
North Korea has bristled at the propaganda campaign amid concern that an influx of outside information could pose a threat to its leader Kim Jong-un.
In 2014, the two Koreas exchanged machine gun fire across the border after the North apparently tried to shoot down balloons carrying propaganda leaflets critical of North Korea.
North Korea blew up the inter-Korean liaison office in the North's border town of Kaesong in 2020 in anger over anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets sent via balloon by North Korean defectors in Seoul.
In the runup to the destruction of the office, Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim, threatened to scrap the 2018 no-hostility military pact with South Korea and demanded South Korea's legislation of a law to stop the sending of leaflets.
In December 2020, South Korea's parliament passed the so-called anti-leaflet act, which stipulates violators can face a maximum prison term of three years or a fine of up to 30 million won (US$23,000).
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