North Korean State Media: South Clamors for Censorship of Conservative Media

North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) claimed on Wednesday that South Koreans are clamoring for the government to shut down dissident conservative voices, particularly the vocal conservative newspaper Chosun Ilbo.

While KCNA did not go so far as to state that the communist regime in Pyongyang advocated for shutting down the publication, it described the newspaper as having committed “pro-Japanese sycophantic and traitorous crimes against democracy and human rights,” without elaborating.

Chosun Ilbo is regularly among the most critical media outlets in South Korea against leftist President Moon Jae-in and his policy of using friendly diplomacy, arts, and sporting events in an attempt to bring the two Koreas together. It has also published critical pieces condemning President Donald Trump for meeting with communist dictator Kim Jong-un and regularly criticized Seoul for not giving a loud enough voice to the victims of the North Korean regime.

North Korea bans all media not created by the government and imposes harsh punishments, including death and life sentences in labor camps, on individuals found possessing foreign media, such as Hollywood movies or South Korean television dramas.

KCNA claimed that an unnamed “civic and social organization” protested outside the offices of Chosun Ilbo on Monday, calling for the newspaper to shut down. It cites a report in Tongil News, a South Korean newspaper. Tongil did cover the alleged protests, publishing photos that show about eight people attended the event. That newspaper identifies the protest as having been organized by a group called the “Unification World Peace Group,” a leftist pro-North Korea group.

KCNA claims the group was present at the offices of the newspaper to “demand the shutdown of conservative media hell-bent on the ‘row about followers of the north.'”

Chosun Ilbo is often a target of ire from the left. It has consistently criticized President Moon’s administration for marginalizing human rights voices, publishing reports this year suggesting that Seoul is pressuring human rights advocates into silence to continue being able to invite communist dictator Kim Jong-un to attend summits and participate in regional sporting events. Following Trump’s meeting with Kim, Chosun Ilbo said the summit “represents no progress and achieves nothing,” accusing Trump of “kindergarten diplomacy” for failing to get Kim to sign any concrete promises regarding denuclearization.

Most recently, Chosun Ilbo broke the news that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo brought a CD copy of Elton John’s Rocket Man album to his latest trip to North Korea, brought as a gift for Kim Jong-un. Pompeo did not deliver the gift, according to Trump.

North Korean state media, controlled closely by the highest-ranking members of the elite in Pyongyang, highlighting calls for censoring dissenting voices follows several revelatory screeds published by both KCNA and the state newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, reminding North Koreans that opening up economically to the world will not mean that foreign culture and media will no longer be outlawed.

“If one falls captive to the imperialist ideology and culture, one would be powerless though one has powerful military strength. This is a bitter lesson taught by history,” North Korean media warned in April, shortly after the announcement that Kim would meet with Trump in Singapore. The piece branded American media in particular as “cultural poisoning” to be avoided at all costs.

Reports from within the country suggest that police have taken even more enthusiastically to arresting and torturing anyone possessing foreign materials. According to Radio Free Asia (RFA), a man was arrested and tortured for days after being caught possessing South Korean won, the national currency, which he received as a souvenir from a friend in China. The outlet also notes the story of a college student arrested and disappeared following the discovery of South Korean music on his computer. Possession of illegal USBs or video content is similarly punished.