PACKED with missile tests, propaganda hailing the great leaders and tirades against the United States, North Korea’s top newspaper was long considered so incendiary that South Korea banned its citizens from reading it.
But dovish President Lee Jae Myung is now seeking better ties with Pyongyang and has joked that he does not believe the public will “become commies” by reading the Rodong Sinmun.
That means from this week, South Koreans can access the publication, whose name means “Workers’ Newspaper” — at select locations without state approval.
Prospective readers no longer have to identify themselves and submit an application explaining their purpose, though they still must visit public libraries to view a copy.
Opinions in the South Korean capital Seoul, were divided on allowing free access to propaganda from Pyongyang.
All media in North Korea is tightly controlled by the government, and the Rodong Sinmun is the mouthpiece of the repressive ruling Workers’ Party.
“It’s like giving people access to ISIS propaganda,” said Park Si-won, a 22-year-old university student, referring to the militant group also known as Islamic State.
“You wouldn’t do that unless you wanted them to join the terrorist group,” Si-won said.
“To allow people to read the newspaper of a hostile country, or to lead them towards reading it, the very idea itself is extremely unsettling,” Se-wung stated.
But others were sceptical that South Koreans would go out of their way to seek out the paper.
“Many people these days don’t even read physical newspapers anyway. I doubt they’ll make the effort to read Rodong Sinmun,” said Son Yu-jin, 27, a graduate student.
South Korea and the nuclear-armed North remain officially at war, and Seoul long banned all access to Pyongyang’s propaganda on security grounds.
Many restrictions remain in place — North Korean websites are still inaccessible from South Korean IP addresses.
At Seoul’s national library on Friday, AFP journalists saw a handful of people flipping through copies of Rodong Sinmun, its pages replete with photos of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — whose name is always carried in bold type.
But elsewhere, AFP struggled to find a library that had actually implemented the new rules.