First rise seen since 1997
The number of people who have been booked or arrested for violating the National Security Law increased this year for the first time after 10 years. The figure has declined every year since 1997, when under former president Kim Young-sam hundreds of members of a leftist umbrella university student organization, Hanchongyeon, were charged under the law. According to data from the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office and a parliamentary audit of the Justice Ministry, the number of persons who were charged with breaching the National Security Law was 919 in 1997 and then decreased to 829 in 1998, to 730 in 1999, and to 391 in 2000. Since then, the figure steadily dropped until 2005. The number of persons who were arrested for violating the law as opposed to just charged under it decreased from 573 in 1997 to 397 in 1998, to 273 in 1999, to 118 in 2000, and eventually to 12 last year. That means 62.4 percent who were booked under the law in 1998 were also arrested, whereas that figure dropped to 11.2 percent last year. Of those arrested, the percent of persons found guilty was 48.8 percent in 2005, down from 86.3 percent in 1997. During the first seven months of this year, 25 persons were booked under the law and nine were arrested. But those figures jumped to 30 and 14, respectively, last week, with the arrest of five persons, including both a current and former vice secretary-general of the progressive opposition Democratic Labor Party, for allegedly meeting with a North Korean agent in China in the 1980s.Also, as the prosecution continues to investigate the case of Choi, a researcher of a social institute who allegedly posted a transcript of North Korea’s "military first" policy online, the number of people who will be arrested on the charge of breaching the law is expected to increase.
