North Korean human rights group "Fighters for a Free North Korea" sends leaflets to North Korea from Paju City, Gyeonggi Province in 2022. Newsis

By Lee Yeon-woo

North Korean human rights groups urged President Yoon Suk Yeol to revise the current government guideline in order to resume loudspeaker broadcasts and let activist send anti-regime leaflets across the inter-Korean border.

Seven North Korea human rights groups from four countries ― South Korea, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada ― sent a joint letter to Yoon, asking him to revise the government guideline on the so-called "anti-leafleting law," the Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG), who also signed on the letter, said on Friday.

The former Moon Jae-in government legislated an amendment to the Inter-Korean Relations Development Act, better known as the "anti-leafleting law," which can send anti-Pyongyang leafleters and loudspeaker broadcasters behind bars for up to three years. The law was enacted after North Korea threatened to retaliate against activists sending leaflets across the border.

The law, which went into effect in March 2021, has been criticized by human rights groups overseas for restricting freedom of speech. As the criticism mounted citing the law's ambiguity and restriction of basic rights, the unification ministry publicized the guideline leaving law enforcement authorities with the right to interpret which actions can be punished.

"Your government has been consistently opposed to the anti-leafleting law since taking office on May 10, 2022," the groups said in the letter.

Last May, Yoon said in an interview with Voice of America that he thinks it's not "appropriate for a government to forcibly regulate nongovernmental organizations' human rights activities."

"While your ruling People Power Party (PPP) currently lacks a majority in the National Assembly, the situation will remain unchanged at least until the next quadrennial parliamentary election on April 10, 2024, while there are executive actions that your government can take," the groups continued.

The groups criticized that the current law "is inconsistent with South Korea's international legal obligation to respect fundamental human rights, in particular the right to freedom of expression."

As a result, the groups requested the addition of an interpretive principle in the guideline that nothing in the law shall be interpreted as permitting the violation of human rights, such as freedom of expression and the principle of legality.

They also viewed the reasons for punishment as being groundless. The law criminalizes the action of spreading information as it can "harm or cause grave danger to the lives of South Korean citizens."

"The spreading leaflets itself is not harmful to the South Korean residents living nearby. What causes danger is North Korean's retaliation. So it is an issue of interpretation," Shin Hee-seok, a legal analyst from the Transitional Justice Working Group told The Korea Times.

They also requested the restricted area be narrowed from "south of the Military Demarcation Line (MDL)," which means all of South Korea, to "areas along the MDL," and asked not to punish leafleters who are in international waters when sending the leaflets. It is legal to send leaflets in a third country under the current law.

"Revising the law at the National Assembly needs approval from the opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), and no one knows when the Constitutional Court will give its decision. So I think the suggestion is quite feasible," Shin said.

Their joint letter was also sent to Prime Minister Han Duck-soo as well as the minsters of foreign affairs, justice, and unification.