According to data released today, in the first twelve months since President Park Geun Hye took office, South Korean police arrested 119 people on suspicion of violating the controversial National Security Law and, of this number, 22 were subsequently charged. This marks a 19% year-on-year rise in arrests, and 37.5% more being charged.

Revealing the date, the National Police Agency (NPA) said, “This [rise] is attributed to an intensive crackdown on security law breaches such as the arrests of a businessman for handing over classified information to North Korea and members of a pro-Pyongyang activist group."

The first case alluded to above is that of a 56-year-old businessman and member of the board of directors of the Separated Families Committee known only as “Kang.” Kang is believed to have been turned by the General Reconnaissance Bureau last December and persuaded to pass the North a high-tech military image storage and transmission device, “KAISHOT,” as well as a list of names of South Korean separated family members.

In the second case, six personnel from the South Korean branch of the Pan-national Alliance for Reunification of the Fatherland were arrested on suspicion of hosting a pro-North event, as well as producing and distributing information sympathetic to North Korea online.

The recent crackdown on “pro-North” actions was initiated to match a rising number of cases of pro-North propaganda appearing on the internet and entering the public domain via social networks, the NPA noted. Last year the police restricted 15,665 websites and messaging boards, blocked 27 pro-North Korea sites operated from abroad and shut down 338 pro-North social media accounts.

However, a number of the administrators of these websites have since protested the decision to block them, branding the police's actions an extreme response to actions that are not pro-North Korean in any way.