Activists face first national security law trial in decade

SEOUL, Oct. 24 (Yonhap) -- Prosecutors on Friday indicted several leaders of a left-wing civic group accused of promulgating North Korean propaganda in the South, a violation of the National Security Law and the first such trial in a decade amid growing criticism of the conservative government.

The suspects claim they are innocent and plan to file a defamation suit against
the prosecution.
The four are leaders from the group Solidarity for Practice of the South-North
Joint Declaration and are accused of violating the security law by allegedly
pledging allegiance to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and posting pro-Pyongyang
articles on the Web, said investigators at the Seoul Central District
Prosecutors' Office.
The Seoul-based organization was established in 2000 to commemorate the
first-ever inter-Korean summit earlier that year.
"Feigning a private-sector unification movement, they openly engaged in pro-North
Korean activities to benefit the enemy and played a role as a think tank for
general leftist forces in the country," Kook Min-soo, deputy chief prosecutor for
public security, told reporters.
On the pretext of supporting the unification movement, investigators said, the
group leaders received Pyongyang's propaganda directives from North Korean agents
and disseminated them through Internet portal sites like Naver, Daum and Cyworld.
The North Korean doctrines refer to South Korea as a "puppet government of the
United States" and demand an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from the South,
they said.
According to one memo seized by the investigators, North Korean agents instructed
the activists to "work among the public, punish Hwang Jang-yop, uproot defectors'
organizations and turn the U.S. embassy's Web site into an anti-U.S. propagation
site," prosecutors said.
Hwang, the highest ranking defector ever to flee the North, remains under tight
security to guard against possible assassination.
"The case is the first of its kind in ten years involving civic activists" in
connection with the security law, Kook said.
The suspects have now been detained by the prosecution and were unavailable for
comment.
Other members from the civic group deny the allegations and accuse the deeply
unpopular Lee Myung-bak government of trying to incite public paranoia against
communism.
The suspects had gained approval from Seoul's then liberal governments, in line
with the security law, prior to meeting with North Korean officials, including a
2004 meeting in Beijing on a joint historical site survey, they said.
"We see this as the manipulation of a scapegoat to keep the government afloat,"
Han Jae-choon, a leading member of the accused civic organization, said.
The prosecution's allegation that the suspects had pledged allegiance to the
North Korean leader is "simply not true, and we will seek legal action against
the defamation," he said.
Lee's conservative government has been constantly at odds with the left-leaning
civic community, launching corruption investigations into leading organizations
and clamping down on street protests.
Critics say such hardline actions aim to quell the civic protest movement against
Lee's growth-driven, pro-conglomerate projects, such as the stalled construction
of a cross-country canal and the privatization of medical and water services.
In the latest such probe, Choi Yul, head of leading environmental organization
Korea Green Foundation, was banned from travel on corruption allegations last
month.
hkim@yna.co.kr