By Alex Jensen
SEOUL
South Korean President Park Geun-hye accused those sympathetic to North Korea’s leadership of holding “greatly biased and distorted” views Monday.
Her remarks at a weekly government meeting came amid heightened sensitivity over public attitudes toward Pyongyang.
Korean-American writer Shin Eun-mi was questioned Sunday by police in Seoul for allegedly making pro-North comments while participating in a South Korean ‘talk concert’ tour in recent weeks.
Shin told reporters upon answering her summons that she was “baffled and at a loss for words” after being accused of violating South Korea’s strict National Security Law – which forbids praising Pyongyang’s political ideals.
While Shin sees herself as a “bridge between the two Koreas,” conservative groups and North Korean refugees have accused her of distorting the realities of the peninsula’s separation.
A day later, the president responded by claiming that “the social conflict surrounding the so-called pro-North Korea concerts has recently reached worrying levels.”
“Certain people who have made several visits to the North have closed their eyes to the appalling living conditions of the North Korean people or the human rights violations, and distorted and exaggerated their certain biased experiences as if they are the real state of affairs in the North,” Park told senior secretaries, according to local news agency Yonhap.
The government meeting also followed a weekend during which American citizen Arturo Pierre Martinez appeared at a press conference in Pyongyang -- having illegally entered North Korea last month – and accused the United States of operating like “a Mafia enterprise.”
But it will be the North’s human rights under scrutiny this week – as the United Nations General Assembly is set to vote Thursday on a resolution that includes a referral of Pyongyang to the International Criminal Court.
www.aa.com.tr/en
