South Koreans now free to read North’s newspaper, once banned as seditious

SEOUL - Packed with news about missile tests, propaganda hailing the great leaders and tirades against the US, North Korea’s top newspaper was long considered so incendiary that South Korea banned its citizens from reading it.

But dovish South Korean President Lee Jae Myung is now seeking better ties with Pyongyang and has joked that he does not believe the public will “become commies” by reading the Rodong Sinmun.

That means South Koreans can, from this week, access the publication – the name of which means “Workers’ Newspaper” – at select locations without state approval.

Prospective readers no longer have to identify themselves and submit an application explaining their purpose, though they still must visit public libraries to view a copy.

Opinions in South Korean capital Seoul were divided on allowing free access to propaganda from Pyongyang.

All media in North Korea is tightly controlled by the government, and the Rodong Sinmun is the mouthpiece of the repressive ruling Workers’ Party.

“It’s like giving people access to ISIS propaganda,” said student Park Si-won, 22.

“You wouldn’t do that unless you wanted them to join the terrorist group.”

Eighty-one-year-old Hong Se-wung called the change “undesirable”.

“To allow people to read the newspaper of a hostile country, or to lead them towards reading it – the very idea itself is extremely unsettling.”

But others were sceptical that South Koreans would go out of their way to seek out the paper.

“Many people these days don’t even read physical newspapers anyway. I doubt they’ll make the effort to read Rodong Sinmun,” said graduate student Son Yu-jin, 27.

‘Symbolic change’

South Korea and the nuclear-armed North remain officially at war, and Seoul had long banned all access to Pyongyang’s propaganda on security grounds.

Many restrictions remain in place – North Korean websites are still inaccessible from South Korean IP addresses.

At Seoul’s national library on Jan 2, AFP journalists saw a handful of people flipping through copies of Rodong Sinmun, its pages replete with photos of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, whose name is always carried in bold type.

But elsewhere, AFP struggled to find a library that had actually implemented the new rules.

“Practically speaking, this is really a symbolic change,” said Mr Chad O’Carroll, whose specialist website NK News hosts a platform for reading North Korean media.

“Overall, it would be much easier for students of North Korea studies to work with these materials if the South Korean government made the websites of North Korean state media accessible.”

That, he said, would require politically difficult changes to Seoul’s security law.

Seoul has vowed to “steadily expand access” to information on North Korea, as it works to improve ties that are at their worst levels in years.

The move is not reciprocal – North Koreans remain banned from accessing any South Korean content at all, and risk heavy penalties if caught doing so.

South Korea’s President Lee has described the relaxation of Cold War-era censorship as an “opportunity to understand the reality of North Korea accurately”.

Businesswoman Bae Jee-woo agreed.

“Even if South Korean citizens can access Rodong Sinmun directly, they would be able to interpret it based on their own standards and philosophies,” she told AFP.

“It’s highly unlikely that they would be significantly influenced by North Korea’s propaganda or anything like that.” AFP