Earlier this year a Seoul court sentenced a man to two years’ imprisonment because 18 years ago he made an unauthorized trip via China to North Korea and during his visit was known to have bowed to a statue of the hermit-state’s founder, Kim Il-sung.
The man then lived in Germany until he returned home last December, whereupon he was arrested for having violated the National Security Act. An appeals court last week acquitted him, ruled that the bow did not constitute a threat to South Korea’s national security.
Another appeals court last August came to the rescue of Park Jeong-geun, who had been given a 10 month prison term for re-tweeting material from North Korea’s official Twitter account. The court accepted Mr. Park’s argument that he had been lampooning the North Korean authorities; a lower court had found that he had been “supporting and joining forces with an anti-state entity.”