North and South Korea are engaged in a small war in the air. Now Seoul is warning the population about balloons full of garbage from the North.
The South Korean capital Seoul has warned the population about balloons from North Korea. The military announced that the state was sending balloons filled with “dirt” across the heavily guarded border. The English newspaper “Guardian” reported on this, among others.
A statement from the city of Seoul urged the public not to touch balloons “identified in the sky near Seoul” and to report them as they would be “handled by the military”.
North Korea said the balloons were in retaliation for an ongoing propaganda campaign by North Korean defectors and activists in South Korea, who send balloons across the border carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets, food, medicine, money and USB sticks with K-pop music videos.
The South Korean parliament passed a law in 2020 that criminalizes the sending of leaflets to the North. But the activists did not stop there.
In the same year, Pyongyang unilaterally cut off all official military and political communications with the South and blew up an inter-Korean liaison office on its side of the border, arguing that the leaflets were directed against the North.
Last year, South Korea's Constitutional Court repealed the law for 2020, saying it was an impermissible restriction on free speech. Kim Jong-un's sister Kim Yo-jong – one of North Korea's top spokespeople – mocked South Korea for complaining about the balloons this week. Yo-jong said North Koreans were simply exercising their right to free speech.
