The Interview:
Activist 'sends DVDs into N Korea by balloon'
Lee Min-bok said he hadn't
found The Interview particularly funny but wanted to "tell the truth"
to North Koreans
A South Korean activist says he has flown thousands of copies of
controversial Sony film The Interview over the North Korean border.
Lee Min-bok said he had carried out the launches at night four
times since January, most recently on Saturday.
The Seth Rogen comedy, about a fictional CIA plot to kill North
Korean leader Kim Jong-un, enraged Pyongyang.
Sony initially pulled the film after a hacking attack and
threats to attack cinemas which were screening it.
But it changed its mind and gave the film a limited cinema
release after being accused of responding to an attack on free speech.
The FBI says North Korea was behind the hack and threats, though
it denies this.
Mr Lee, a defector from the North, said he had tied the DVDs to
balloons along with bundles of US dollars and leaflets criticising Mr Kim's
regime.
He told AFP news agency: "I launched thousands of copies
and about a million leaflets on Saturday, near the western part of the
border."
He said the launches were all done in remote areas and without
publicity but that the police "would have no right to stop me".
"'You know what's more destructive than a nuclear bomb?
Words,' says North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (Randall Park), with a tear in his
eye, in The Interview. It's a prophetic line in this otherwise limp comedy,
which has stirred up a world of controversy it doesn't earn." Sara
Stewart, New York Post
Mr Lee told CNN, which joined him on Saturday's launch, that he
had not laughed at The Interview and found it vulgar.
But he said the North "hates this film because it shows Kim
Jong-un as a man, not a God" and that he wanted to "tell the
truth" to North Koreans.
Any North Korean who had access to a DVD player and was found to
have watched the film would likely face a lengthy sentence in a prison camp.
South Korean activists have repeatedly carried out balloon drops
across the border of material which they say shows the reality of life outside
the restrictive country, in the hope of encouraging North Koreans to reject
propaganda and stand up to their leadership.
The North has demanded the South stop such launches, saying they
are provocative. Its border guards have in the past tried to shoot down the
balloons.
But while South Korea says the activity is unhelpful - and potentially
places people living near the border in danger - it says its citizens are
entitled to distribute their opinions.
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