SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Six People had been detained Friday in South Korea for making an attempt to ship 1,600 plastic bottles stuffed with rice, miniature Bibles, $1 payments and USB sticks towards North Korea by sea, police mentioned.
The People had been apprehended on front-line Gwanghwa Island earlier than throwing the bottles into the ocean so they might float towards North Korean shores on the tides, two Gwanghwa cops mentioned.
They mentioned the People are being investigated on allegations they violated the legislation on the administration of security and disasters.
The officers, who requested anonymity as a result of they weren’t licensed to talk to media on the problem, refused to offer private particulars of the People in keeping with privateness guidelines.
Gwanghwa police mentioned they haven’t discovered what’s on the USB sticks.
The U.S. Embassy in South Korea had no fast public remark.
For years, activists have sought to drift plastic bottles or fly balloons throughout the border carrying anti-North Korea propaganda leaflets and USB thumb drives carrying South Korean dramas and Ok-pop songs, a apply that was banned from 2021-2023 over issues it may inflame tensions with the North.
North Korea has responded to earlier balloon campaigns with fiery rhetoric and different reveals of anger, and final 12 months the nation launched its personal balloons throughout the border, dumping garbage on varied South Korean websites together with the presidential compound.
In 2023, South Korea’s Constitutional Court docket struck down a controversial legislation that criminalized the sending of leaflets and different objects to North Korea, calling it an extreme restriction on free speech.
However since taking workplace in early June, the brand new liberal authorities of President Lee Jae Myung is pushing to crack down on such civilian campaigns with different safety-related legal guidelines to keep away from a flare-up tensions with North Korea and promote the protection of frontline South Korean residents.
On June 14, police detained an activist for allegedly flying balloons towards North Korea from Gwanghwa Island.
Lee took workplace with a promise to restart long-dormant talks with North Korea and set up peace on the Korean Peninsula. Lee’s authorities halted frontline anti-Pyongyang propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts to attempt to ease army tensions. North Korean broadcasts haven’t been heard in South Korean front-line cities since then.
However it’s unclear if North Korea will reply to Lee’s conciliatory gesture after vowing final 12 months to sever relations with South Korea and abandon the purpose of peaceable Korean reunification. Official talks between the Koreas have been stalled since 2019, when U.S.-led diplomacy on North Korean denuclearization derailed.