STORY: Activist Lee Min-bok is known for sending balloons into North Korea, where he once defected from.
They carry leaflets against leader Kim Jong Un into the isolated country, over the border from the South.
But Lee hasn’t sent them for months now, for fear of a potential crackdown closer to home as newly elected president of the South, Lee Jae Myung, has been pushing to ease tension with the North.
The president says activists should be ‘severely punished’ if they keep sending balloons.
For years, police have monitored Lee, the activist, from next door.
One plainclothes officer told Reuters they’re there to protect him from North Korean threats.
But now, he spends his days writing online posts criticizing the South Korean government instead of planning balloon launches.
“I’ve been doing it quietly, and what’s wrong with that? Provoking North Korea? No way. I want to continue it until North Korea liberalises its press. Our government should be ashamed of itself.”
Balloon activists like Lee, many of whom are also defectors, are no strangers to political attention.
A previous liberal president tried to ban their activities, but that was declared unconstitutional.
Last year, North Korea expressed its anger over the balloons by launching waves of its own into the South, some carrying garbage.
Since taking office, the new president has ordered measures to stop leaflet launches.
Officials discussed deploying police to border regions and using aviation safety laws to punish activists, according to the Unification Ministry.
One police official said that in the last year, authorities have investigated 72 leaflet-related cases, including some involving American activists, and sent just over a dozen to prosecutors.
The moves are welcomed by some residents who have said the launches put them at risk.
Park Hae-yeon is a farmer whose family runs a restaurant in Paju, a town near the border:
“Now I am hearing leaflets are not being distributed. Hearing that, I thought, ‘Okay, now I just need to work harder and serve my customers well and, of course keep working hard on farming and living my life.’ I see a sign of hope,”
President Lee may still face an uphill battle in improving ties with the North.
Last year, Kim Jong Un abandoned a goal of unification with the South and has shown little openness to diplomacy.
Since he took office, Lee has emphasized engagement and suspended anti-North Korea loudspeaker broadcasts at the border.