South Korean Man Retweets North Korea Kim Jong-Il Tweet, Gets Arrested For Being A National Security Threat

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North Korea may be a communist country, while South Korea may be a democratic country, however, what’s certain is that these two countries really hate each other. If North Korea’s sentiments towards South Korea are very clear, Samsung’s home nation has decided to cool down its threats. At least until now… Apparently, there is a law in South Korea which forbids the people of this country “to praise” North Korea even if it’s nothing more than a joke.

A South Korean man has been arrested last month after he retweeted a message from North Korea which said “Long Live General Kim Jong-Il.” Although he did this only as a joke, the South Korean authorities didn’t buy it, and he is now facing a 7-year sentence in prison. The 24-year-old man named Park Jeong-Geun is a member of the South Korean Socialist Party, but not even that helped him to get out of jail.

The South Korean authorities have labelled Park Jeong-Geun as a threat to the national security for retweeting a message that praised North Korea. The police is backed by a South Korean law which says that nobody is allowed to say something good about its rival or about something related to it, and anyone caught doing so, is risking a 7-year prison sentence.

Mr. Jeong-Geun said that he only meant to make fun of North Korea and its leader, but his home country’s authorities just didn’t get his sarcasm. He has become an “enemy” of South Korea, and most likely he will spend his best years in prison, and who knows what will happen to him when he gets out of jail.

Meanwhile, the Amnesty International have criticized South Korea’s actions saying that the authorities are simply incapable of understanding such a minor thing as sarcasm. Sam Zarifi, AI’s director, added that this is not a matter of national security, and that democratic countries should encourage the right to free speech, not to undermine it.

On the other hand, South Korea reminded everyone that such positive comments about North Korea can not be tolerated, and that everyone who does it, is facing jail-time. Zafiri asked South Korea to drop all charges because arresting someone for expressing his opinion is against the international law of freedom of speech.

The Amnesty International director added that South Korea shouldn’t “intimidate its people” and instead it should focus on protecting the rights of its citizens.

A similar case happened in China when a female has been sentenced to 12 months of labor camp after retweeting a joke. The AI protested the decision, however, nothing happened and the Chinese woman remained in custody.

Twitter has managed to get a lot of people into trouble including politicians, sportsmen, actors, and singers worldwide so be careful what you tweet cause you never know who’s watching.