hankyoreh

Nov. 26. (by Kim Tae-hyeong

By Kim Won-chul, staff reporter and Park Im-geun, North Jeolla correspondent

Conservative organizations are rushing to lodge complaints against Catholic priest Park Chang-shin for violating the National Security Law through comments he made about North Korea’s 2010 shelling of Yeonpyeong Island in a special mass held by the Jeonju diocese of the Catholic Priests’ Association for Justice (CPAJ). It appears that the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office will soon decide which local office of the prosecutors will handle the case.

Many legal professionals believe that it will not be easy to substantiate the charges based only on Park’s comments. Nevertheless, the prosecutors are likely to follow the wishes of President Park Geun-hye, who came forward to say that she will not “tolerate behavior that hurts the public’s trust or divides people.”

On Nov. 26, the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office discussed where to assign Park Shin-Chang’s case, since complaints have been lodged at their offices, the Seoul Central Prosecutors Office, and the Gunsan branch of the Jeonju Prosecutors‘ Office. “We were planning to assign the case today, but we received another complaint from a conservative organization late in the afternoon, so the decision was delayed,” said a source at the Supreme Prosecutors Office who spoke on condition of anonymity. “We might get more complaints in the future, so we will assign them all at once after waiting a little longer.”

According to protocol, the case would be assigned to the Gunsan branch, which has jurisdiction over Gunsan in North Jeolla Province, where Park made the comments. But the assignment has reportedly been delayed since the president herself got involved in the case and since there are not many prosecutors in Gunsan with experience in security issues. Given these circumstances, if the case is assigned to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office, it will be difficult to avoid criticism that the decision was politically motivated.

The complaints lodged by the conservative organizations accuse Park Shin-chang of violating the “praise and incitement” clause of the National Security Law.

Article 7 Clause 1 of the National Security Act says that “any person who praises, incites or propagates the activities of an antigovernment organization, a member thereof or of the person who has received an order from it, or who acts in concert with it, or propagates or instigates a rebellion against the State, with the knowledge of the fact that it may endanger the existence and security of the State or democratic fundamental order, shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than seven years.”

During a special mass to call on President Park to step down - held at the cathedral in the Susong neighborhood of Gunsan in North Jeolla Province on Nov. 22 - Park Shin-chang asked the audience, “What is North Korea supposed to do if the US and South Korea continue their military drills around the NLL, which is disputed territory?” When audience said, “shoot,” Park said, “Of course they’re going to shoot. That was what the Yeonpyeong Island shelling was all about.”

However, there are many observers who hold that Park Chang-shin’s remarks should not be seen as a violation of Article 7 of the National Security Law. “It’s not easy to prove charges that someone was aiding the enemy simply because something they said appeared in the media,” said a lawyer with a lot of experience in national security legal cases during a previous career as a prosecutor and spoke on condition of anonymity. “The only way to convict Park Shin-chang is by demonstrating that there is a connection between his comments and North Korea.”

A senior judge working in Seoul who spoke on condition of anonymity said, “If there is no additional evidence that can show that Park Shin-chang made the comments with the objective of aiding an anti-government organization, the comments by themselves are probably not enough to get a guilty verdict.”

The Supreme Court takes a strict view about the requirements for convicting someone according to Article 7 Clause 1 of the National Security Law. “The collaboration that is prohibited by Article 7 Clause 1 of the National Security Law must involve the individual actively expressing to others an intention to respond to and join in the activity of an anti-government group,” the court said. “There must be a clear possibility that this collaboration could do actual harm to ‘the existence and security of the State or democratic fundamental order.’”

It appears that the prosecutors will generally examine what Park Chang-shin said and did in the past and along with the situation immediately before and after the comments. “It may also be necessary to review all of Park’s past statements in order to demonstrate what he really meant by these comments,” said a source at the prosecutors who spoke on condition of anonymity.

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