TMCnet Feature

Twitter (News - Alert), a social media mega site, was designed for users to have a public forum where they could express their thoughts, feelings or opinions about any topic—in 140 characters or less that is. However, the whole foundation of the extremely popular website is now being challenged, as this week prosecutors from South Korea decided to pursue charges and went after a person for reposting messages from the North Korean government’s Twitter account. The Twitter account the individual was accused of reposting is managed by the North Korean government website, Uriminzokkiri.com.

Named Park Jung-geun, he is a pretty typical 23-year-old photographer who enjoys snapping pictures of babies in particular and thought he was just leveraging his right to freedom of speech when he took a North Korean poster and replaced a North Korean soldier’s face with his own and the soldier’s rifle with a bottle of whisky. I mean it could be worse, right?

Well, not according to the great country of South Korea and its highly controversial National Security Law which was enacted to forbid any “acts that benefit the enemy,” such as North Korea. But the law is extremely vague and doesn’t pinpoint exactly what these acts are. 

Officially indicted on Tuesday,  The New York Times reported that Sam Zarifi, Asia-Pacific director of the human rights group Amnesty International, said in a statement, “This is not a national security case; it’s a sad case of the South Korean authorities’ complete failure to understand sarcasm. Imprisoning anyone for peaceful expression of their opinions violates international law but in this case, the charges against Park are simply ludicrous and should be dropped immediately.”

In his Twitter postings, Jung-geun also referred to himself as “The Young General,” posting hyperlinks to North Korean propaganda songs.  

Back in December, according to The Times, he revealed that the Twitter posts were meant to target the North Korean regime. “It was humiliating and ludicrous to have to wear a straight face and explain all my jokes to the detectives,” he said in a statement.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time the South Korean government has gone after those not in favor of their tactics. In fact, in 2010, 151 people were questioned due to being accused of violating the lessthan spelled out law, climbing from 39 in 2007.

The United Nations and human rights groups have long been aware of South Korea’s efforts to block its citizens’ access to North Korean websites, and it doesn’t look like it will be changing any time soon.

Park Jung-geun currently faces up to seven years in jail if convicted.  Vacation anyone?

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