North threatens 'fire shower' after South's top court overturns leaflet ban

North Korea on Wednesday threatened to unleash a “fire shower” in response to the South Korean Constitutional Court's decision to strike down a ban on sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border.

Defectors and human rights activists launch balloons carrying packages of leaflets critical of the North Korean regime across the border in Paju, Gyeonggi, on April 2, 2016. [YONHAP]

North Korea on Wednesday threatened to unleash a “fire shower” in response to the South Korean Constitutional Court's decision to strike down a ban on sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border.

In September, the Constitutional Court ruled that a ban on dispatching anti-North leaflets over the demilitarized zone (DMZ) in the Development of Inter-Korean Relations Act excessively infringed on the right to freedom of expression.

On Wednesday, the North’s state-controlled Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) blasted the court’s ruling, saying that campaigns to send leaflets carrying messages critical of the regime could trigger a retaliatory attack that would destroy South Korea.

“It is the stance of our revolutionary armed forces that we need to pour a ‘fire shower of punishment’ on not only the base of leaflet distribution but also the stronghold of the puppet,” the KCNA said.

North Korean state media frequently refers to South Korea as a puppet state backed by the United States.

The KCNA also called cross-border leaflet campaigns a form of “malicious psychosocial warfare.”

It also warned that “there is no guarantee that military conflicts similar to those being staged in Europe and the Middle East will not occur on the Korean Peninsula,” suggesting it could stage a military response akin to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the surprise attack conducted by Hamas on Oct. 7.

North Korean defector groups in South Korea and conservative activists have periodically launched balloons carrying leaflets denouncing North Korean leader Kim Jong-un across the DMZ that divides the peninsula, sparking Pyongyang’s ire.

The regime maintains a strict information cordon to prevent the dissemination of information that they claim could corrupt North Koreans.

Defectors and conservative activists say that their activities are aimed at providing residents of North Korea with access to information that undermines the regime’s narrative, including criticism of Kim, his family and policies of the ruling Workers’ Party.

North has responded violently in the past to halt leaflet campaigns.

In October 2014, North Korea fired machine guns during a balloon launch. Some bullets landed in South Korean territory, but no one was hurt.

Pyongyang also blew up the inter-Korean liaison office in the border city of Kaesong in June 2020 to demonstrate its displeasure over continuing leaflet campaigns.

The South Korean National Assembly, controlled by the liberal Democratic Party, which traditionally favors reconciliation with the North, passed a law in December 2020 that barred leaflet balloon launches on the grounds that they endangered the safety of residents living along the border.

But conservatives criticized the law’s proponents as having caved into the North’s demands that the leaflet campaigns be stopped.

The law was passed six months after Kim Yo-jong, the North Korean leader’s powerful sister, threatened to scrap the 2018 inter-Korean military pact over continuing cross-border leaflet launches.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]