NIS alleged to have interfered in the presidential election

Posted on : 2013-02-06 16:41 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
Online manipulation of public opinion may not have been the actions of one rogue agent, but an institutional measure
 staff photographer)
staff photographer)

By Um Ji-won and Heo Jae-hyun, staff reporters

Allegations that a 29-year-old female employee of the National Intelligence Service (NIS) surnamed Kim tried to manipulate popular opinion during last December‘s presidential election have given rise to charges that the NIS interfered in the election on an institutional level. Consequently, criticism of the NIS and the police’s poor investigation of the case is growing in intensity.

On Feb. 5, six civic organizations, including MINBYUN-Lawyers for a Democratic Society and the Progressive Network Center, issued a joint statement on the matter. “For NIS employees to write posts supporting the government and the ruling party and criticizing the opposition and civic groups, and to click ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ on articles posted by others, falls outside of the bounds of the normal work of the NIS. Thus far, the NIS has treated the right to collect information related to domestic security as grounds for getting involved with politics, but this right must be revoked once and for all,” the statement said. “We must also strip the NIS of the authority to plan and alter security work, which can influence police investigations, and gradually transfer this to the office of the National Security Council (NSC).”

The police, who are under suspicion of having played down or covered up the incident, are also becoming a subject of criticism. People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD) held a press conference, also on Feb. 5, in front of the Seoul District Police Department in the Naeja neighborhood of Seoul’s Jongno district. “We are seeing evidence supporting allegations of the NIS’s agency-wide interference in politics. Police attempts to sweep the incident under the rug have also come to light. The NIS and the police, two organizations in charge of information and investigation, have deceived the public,” PSPD said in its statement. “The National Assembly must conduct an investigation and hold hearings about the allegations of NIS involvement in the election and the shoddy police investigation, and they must quickly appoint a special prosecutor.”

On the morning of Feb. 4, Kang Ji-won, a lawyer who ran as an independent in the 2012 presidential election, appeared on PBC radio station and commented on the subject.

“If the NIS or the police were actually involved in the election in this manner, the situation is similar to what we saw just before the April 19 Revolution,” Kang said. “This is an extremely severe problem. It’s the question of whether or not a country’s police and government organizations are interfering with elections. If this is dragged out and more people start talking about it, something completely unexpected, something really big, could take place.”

In a telephone interview on CBS Radio on Feb. 4 with Lee Jae-hwa, a lawyer on the legal committee of MINBYUN, Lee said, “Since a national intelligence agency took a leading role in government manipulation of public opinion, this is a clear case of government interference in the election,” he said. “When the full story is revealed, it could be serious enough that it could become a reason to invalidate the outcome of the presidential election.”

On Feb. 4, Pyo Chang-won, a former professor at the Korean National Police University, made a post on Twitter challenging NIS director Won Sei-hoon to a public debate. Pyo was charged with defamation by a senior official in the NIS after he expressed suspicions that the NIS was involved in the presidential election.

“Stop disgracing the reputation of the agents working in obscurity who even now are putting their safety and their lives in danger out of dedication to their country and their people,” Pyo said in his denunciation of Won. “I gave up my professorship and have stepped forward to bring charges of your illegal interference in the election. Don’t you think the honorable thing to do would be to stop playing these silly tricks, such as having a subordinate bring charges against me, and instead taking me on, man to man?”

 

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