The deportation of a Korean-American woman accused of engaging in pro-North Korean activity has become a fresh issue of contention between conservatives and progressives, and touched off a controversy over freedom of speech in the country.
Shin Eun-mi was deported Saturday under a decision by the Korea Immigration Service, which reviewed her case at the request of the prosecution. Shin, who arrived in Los Angeles on a Korean Air flight the following day, will be barred from entering South Korea for five years.
Shin, a U.S. citizen, was accused of violating the National Security Law that bans praising North Korea. She has visited North Korea six times since 2011, and contributed articles ― mostly excessively positive ― about the country to an Internet news site, wrote a book and participated in lectures and talk shows in South Korea.
The series of recent talk shows Shin cohosted with a South Korean woman invited criticism and legal scrutiny because they were focused on praising North Korea and ignored the reality in the communist nation. Hwang Sun, the cohost, who was a member of the now-defunct progressive political party, also faces charges for pro-North Korea activities.
The talk shows showed how one-sided and distorted their views about North Korea were. For instance, Shin said that most North Korean refugees who have resettled in South Korea wanted to return, and that North Korean people had high expectations of their new young leader and were full of hope for the future.
This is wholly different from the North Korea all but people like Shin know ― a country many continue to flee in search of food and political freedom, and which is ruled by a third-generation totalitarian ruler who ruthlessly executed his own uncle to consolidate his grip on power.
Unfortunately, the deportation is inviting international criticism that the South Korean government is infringing upon freedom of speech and expression. For Seoul officials, the timing was bad because Shin’s deportation followed the Constitutional Court’s ruling last month to disband the Unified Progressive Party for its pro-North Korean platform and activities.
A U.S. State Department spokeswoman said that the U.S. government was concerned that “the national security law, as interpreted and implied in some cases, limits freedom of expression and restricts access to the Internet.”
She quickly added that the U.S. does not have broad concern about South Korea’s overall record on freedom of expression, saying what the U.S. is concerned about is just the “application of the particular law in some cases.”
This rare, but obvious criticism of the Seoul government’s decision to deport Shin was followed by a similar comment from the deputy spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who said that “the secretary-general’s position on freedom of expression and freedom of opinion is well known. ... That would apply here as well.”
These outside criticisms make one wonder whether deportation was the best option for the government. Law-enforcement authorities may well argue that it was inevitable because Shin holds U.S. citizenship and deportation was the most appropriate legal action to take against her.
But officials should have thought more wisely before deporting her, which only gave ammunition to misguided critics’ argument that the conservative government of Park Geun-hye is reviving McCarthyism. Moreover, this society is healthy enough to distinguish between those like Shin, who have blind faith in the anachronistic regime in Pyongyang, and those who have genuine sympathy for the deprived brethren in the North.
