hankyoreh

Jan. 1. (KCNA Yonhap)

By Kim Kyu-won, Staff Writer

Every morning, many press reporters access North Korean news reports through proxy servers by visiting the websites of major North Korean media like the KCNA, Rodong Shinmun, Uriminzokkiri and the Choson Sinbo, the organ of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan. Unification Ministry beat reporters have for a long time been accessing North Korean sites through proxies.

Not only reporters, but Unification Ministry officials, too, use proxies. In Unification Ministry departments outside of the ministry’s intelligence center, which can legally receive North Korean television, radio and communications, civil servants access North Korean communications and newspapers through proxies. Unification Ministry civil servants sometimes put into order statements or editorials from North Korean websites and share them with the pressroom.

The reason why journalists and civil servants access North Korean Internet sites through proxies is that the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) and Korea National Police classify these sites as harmful and block access to them. They believe the content of these sites could be used to praise or encourage North Korea, as defined by Article 7 of the National Security Law.

Connecting and accessing these websites, however, is neither illegal nor subject to punishment. Under the National Security Law, a user can be punished only if they make use of the information with the intention of benefiting the North. Moreover, through proxy sites used by hundred of journalists, anyone can access North Korean sites, so blocking them is not absolutely effective.

Why, then are the police and KCC blocking these websites? Im Guk-bin, the section chief of the Korea National Police’s Second Security Section, said most citizens don’t trust the information from those sites, but people who create or register with pro-North Korean websites or young people with poor judgment could be fooled. In order to prevent pro-North sentiment from spreading, the websites are already being blocked, he said.

Experts have pointed out that blocking access to North Korean websites is anachronistic. In South Korea, where there is press freedom, it is rational to make information about the North available. Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, said the competition between the North Korean and South Korean systems has already been won by the South, and that blocking information about the North was intended to shrink progressive forces.

Many also believed that if the door to North Korean media was opened, South Koreans would better understand North Korean society. Kim Geun-sik of Kyungnam University said the authorities were tying up websites South Koreans would find boring and wouldn’t read, and that if North Korean information were to be freed up, pro-North Korean forces of the kind about which conservatives worry would instead grow smaller.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]