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Park Sang-hak, chairman of Fighters for a Free North Korea protests the South Korean police’s search and seizure of defector groups that launch propaganda balloons into North Korea on June 26. (Kim Bong-gyu, senior staff writer)

The South Korean government has revoked the licenses of two groups of North Korean defectors that had controversially launched propaganda leaflets into North Korea. The two groups are Fighters for a Free North Korea and Kuensaem Education Center.

In a statement on July 17, South Korea’s Ministry of Unification said that it had “reviewed all the explanatory and evidentiary documents submitted by the two groups.”

The Unification Ministry explained that the two groups’ dissemination of propaganda leaflets and other materials into North Korea did not conform to the purpose for which the groups had been established and thus violated the conditions of their license. Furthermore, the groups’ activity gravely hindered the government’s unification policies and efforts to advance inter-Korean relations.

The government also concluded that the groups’ were harming the public interest by raising tensions on the Korean Peninsula and creating a risk to the lives and safety of people living in the border region, which authorized the government to revoke the license under Article 38 of the Civil Code.

Once a group’s license has been revoked, its designation as a fundraising group is cancelled and it is no longer entitled to various tax benefits related to donations.

Both groups immediately protested the decision. Attorney Lee Heon of the group Lawyers for Human Rights and Unification of Korea, which is representing the two groups, announced plans for a legal response.

“We will be applying for an injunction and filing an administrative suit to suspend the validity of the Ministry of Unification’s establishment license revocation,” Lee said.

The Ministry of Unification requested a police investigation of the two groups and began procedures to revoke their establishment licenses after North Korea objected strongly last month to their leaflet scattering activities, which it said were in violation of the South and North Korean leaders’ Panmunjom Declaration of Apr. 27, 2018.

By Park Byong-su, senior staff writer

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