A staff member arranges copies of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, at the National Assembly Library in Seoul, Jan. 7. Yonhap
South Korea’s Ministry of Unification is moving to broaden public access to North Korean state media, expanding beyond Pyongyang's official Rodong Sinmun daily to include four additional newspapers published in the North, according to documents submitted to the National Assembly.
The unification ministry recently reclassified Rodong Sinmun from restricted material to a general reference publication and has begun reviewing four other North Korean newspapers — Minju Joson, Pyongyang’s official daily; Kyoyuk Sinmun, or the Education Newspaper; Munhak Sinmun, the organ of the Central Committee of the Korean Writers’ Alliance, devoted to state-approved literature and theory; and The Pyongyang Times, an English- and French-language weekly — with the aim of making them publicly accessible, lawmakers said Wednesday.
According to documents Rep. Kim Gi-hyeon of the main opposition People Power Party received from the ministry, the government plans to review and selectively release 32,323 items currently classified as “special materials,” including the four newspapers. The ministry also intends to pursue legislative and institutional changes to broaden public access to information related to North Korea.
The newspapers are currently imported from China through a private intermediary. At present, access to such materials is limited to 20 institutions authorized to handle restricted North Korean publications, including the unification ministry’s North Korea Resource Center, the National Library of Korea and the National Assembly Library. Once reclassified as general materials, access could be expanded to additional institutions and allow unrestricted viewing by the general public, as was the case with Rodong Sinmun.
Earlier, Vice Unification Minister Kim Nam-jung said the decision to open access to Rodong Sinmun reflected a broader shift away from the government’s long-held monopoly over information from North Korea.
Rep. Kim criticized the plan, however, arguing that the four newly added publications function as official propaganda that promotes the legitimacy of the North Korean regime and conducts ideological education of its citizens. Reclassifying such materials as general reference, he said, would be inappropriate.
Source: Korea Times News
