A bulletin board at a university in Mokpo, in South Jeolla Province, bears a North-Korean style poster on March 31, 2019. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Apr. 1 (Korea Bizwire) — Police said Monday they began a preliminary probe into North Korean-style posters that appeared on walls at several universities nationwide lampooning the current Moon Jae-in government over its key policies.
The National Police Agency said it is gathering facts on a number of 112 calls made since Saturday with regard to the anti-government posters found hanging on bulletin boards at least 30 colleges in Seoul, Busan, Gangwon, as well as the southern Gyeongsang and Jeolla regions.
“We will see if the content of the posters carry expressions that can be deemed defamation or contempt,” a NPA official said.
The 55-by-80 centimeter, two-page poster, entitled “A Letter to South Korean Students,” blasts President Moon Jae-in’s key policies, such as income-led growth, his push to phase out nuclear power and the policy of engagement with North Korea.
The poster is printed in the unique typeface North Korea often uses in its propaganda and appears intended as ridicule of the government.
It calls for the overthrow of the liberal Moon administration and ends with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s signature, by his official title as chairman of the DPRK State Affairs Commission.
The DPRK stands for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The poster, claiming to be written by Jeondaehyup, calls for students to join a massive rally slated for Saturday at a public park near Seoul’s Hyewha Station.
Jeondaehyup is an abbreviation for the now-disbanded hard-line national student activists’ association that led key democracy movements in the 1980s. The association had been attacked by South Korea’s conservative bloc for its pro-North Korea tendencies.
But the Jeondaehyup that apparently distributed this poster is an activist group unrelated to the former, the police said. The group announced its plan last week via its Facebook page to post 450 copies of what it called “a royal letter from fellow Supreme Comrade Kim.”
(Yonhap)
