The South Korean government said Monday (April 19) that a law amendment has been submitted to the National Assembly to include “sending and receiving information through data communication networks” as an item of trade with North Korea that requires the approval of the minister of unification.
The amendment to the Inter-Korean Exchange and Cooperation Act would require citizens to obtain official permission before using the Internet to exchange digital materials such as movies, music, scanned books or artwork with anyone in North Korea.
Observers say that if passed by the National Assembly, the amendment would be the first major revision of the ROK Exchange and Cooperation Act in 30 years.
Lee Jong-joo, a spokeswoman for South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs, said at a briefing that the law already regulates physical goods entering and leaving North Korea, and that the revised version would add regulation of digital content.
Previously, the main target of the law was the movement of goods, but gradually some cases of transmitting or receiving scanned documents or software via the Internet have come into focus, she said. She stressed that there are precedents for cross-border transmission of digital versions of books and works of art, which were previously approved under the existing regulations, and that the amendment only makes the regulatory process for intangible transmission from hidden to visible, not creating a new category of regulatory targets from scratch.
The amendment, which was submitted to the South Korean parliament in January, comes after South Korea banned the distribution of propaganda leaflets to North Korea in December last year.
The move drew criticism from activists who have used balloons or floating bottles for decades to send anti-North Korean leaflets to North Korea. It also drew the attention of U.S. activists who argued that the measure could violate free speech.
The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, a cross-party body in the U.S. Congress, held an online hearing on April 15 on South Korea’s Anti-DPRK Leaflet Prohibition Act, titled “What South Korea’s Civil and Political Rights Tell Us About the Human Rights Situation on the Korean Peninsula,” which is considered extremely rare for the U.S. Congress to hold a hearing on human rights issues in South Korea.
Strictly speaking, the two Koreas are still at war and the warring parties have not signed a peace treaty, so all inter-Korean contacts should be approved in advance or reported to the government afterwards.
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