North Korea threatens to respond to anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets with a 'shower of shells'

North Korea criticized rival South Korea for removing a law that banned private activists from sending anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets to the North

North Korea on November 8 criticized rival South Korea for removing a law that banned private activists from sending anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets to the North, insisting that such activities amount to psychological warfare and threatening to respond with a “shower of shells.”

The statement published by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency was the first time state media commented on the decision by South Korea’s Constitutional Court in September to invalidate a 2020 law that criminalized leafletting. The decision was based on concerns that it excessively restricted free speech.

The ruling came in response to a complaint filed by North Korean defector-activists in the South. They included Park Sang-hak, who has been a frequent target of North Korean government anger for his yearslong campaign of flying leaflets across the border with giant balloons.

North Korea is extremely sensitive about any outside attempt to undermine leadership of authoritarian ruler Kim Jong Un as he maintains tight control over the country’s 26 million people while severely restricting their access to foreign news.

The law, crafted by the previous liberal government in Seoul that pursued inter-Korean engagement, was passed six months after the North expressed its frustration over the leaflets by blowing up an inter-Korean liaison office in the North Korean border town of Kaesong in June 2020.

Tensions between the Koreas are at their highest point years as the pace of both Mr. Kim’s weapons tests and the South Korea’s combined military exercises with the United States have intensified in a tit-for-tat cycle.

In comments attributed to a political commentator, the KCNA warned that the North in the current state of tensions would consider leafletting as a “high-level psychological warfare” and even a “pre-emptive attack conducted before a start of war.”