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An activist said he again flew a giant balloon carrying Covid-19 aid and anti-North Korean placards across the border between North Korea and North Korea despite recent warnings from North Korea that his event would be fatally attacked.
Park Sang-hak, a North Korean defector turned activist, said 20 balloons were launched from South Korean border towns carrying 20,000 masks and tens of thousands of Tylenol and vitamin C tablets.
One of the balloons carried a placard that read “Let’s destroy Kim Jong-un and (his sister) Kim Yo-jong,” along with a photo of them, he said.
The activist said the balloons carried no other publicity statements.
Over the years, Park Geun-hye has floated helium-filled balloons with tons of anti-Pyongyang leaflets, harshly criticizing the Kim family’s dictatorship in North Korea.
But during the Covid-19 pandemic, he has recently switched to masks and other healthcare products.
North Korean officials, outraged by the activism, responded to Mr Park’s replacement of the goods with highly dubious claims that the items were responsible for the country’s Covid-19 outbreak.
Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of the country’s leader, said last month that if “garbage” continued to be shipped from South Korea, North Korea would respond by “eliminating South Korean authorities.”
Days after Kim Yo-jung’s warning, a man attacked Mr. Park with a pole at a rally in Seoul, breaking the activist’s arm.
The attackers have been detained, police said.
Mr Park said he believed North Korea had ordered pro-Pyongyang forces in South Korea to attack his group, a claim that could not be independently verified.
In an attempted assassination attempt in 2011, South Korean authorities captured a North Korean agent who tried to kill Mr Park with a pen filled with poisonous needles.
North Korea is extremely sensitive to leaflet campaigns and other outside attempts to criticize the Kim family’s authoritarian rule over its people, most of whom have little access to foreign news.
In 2014, North Korea opened fire on balloons flying towards its territory, and in 2020 destroyed an empty South Korean-built liaison office in North Korea in a show of anger at handing out leaflets.
Last year, under a former liberal government seeking to improve relations with North Korea, South Korea implemented a controversial new law criminalizing such private leaflet activity. Mr Park was given a suspended fine of 3 million won (£1,900) compared to his previous balloon flight.
Police said they were investigating Mr Park’s activities after he sent balloons carrying drugs across the border in July. Mr Park said police had not contacted him about the launch.
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