04.01.2017
KBS News
by Jeong Hyeokjin
video at link
NIS headquarters, Seoul.
An official document is leading observers to assume that National Intelligence Agency drew up a cultural blacklist. The media has been given a copy of a two-page confession entitled “Leftism within the Urban Culture Organisation: the need to rectify deviant tendencies.” Part of this document presents claims that regional society has been contaminated by “leftism”, and so in order to push ahead with prosperity, the Urban Culture Organisation must get in the way [of this leftist tendency] and instigate specific management measures. The Board of Audit or the Ministry [of Culture] actually checked whether conditions could be normalised by cutting subsidies or bringing criminal charges and so on [against leftist elements] and utilise the help of the media to highlight any budget wastage by leftist elements within government departments.
Bak Yeongsu, a member of special prosecuting team, said that when he saw these documents he judged their style to be consistent with documents produced by the National Intelligence Service. Last month on the 15th was when the documents were first suspected to be very similar to documents produced by the National Intelligence Service, which is based in President Bak’s residence, the Blue House. The provenance of the document as being from the NIS was accurately confirmed by anti-forgery watermarks made up of large characters at the centre and small characters appearing at the corners. It’s [also] written in a mixture of Korean and English, a style of writing which has almost disappeared from other government departments, and it is written in Ming dynasty printing style, with the main body of the text written in Gothic text.
The special prosecutor will summon NIS officials soon to confirm the process of arraignment for prosecution and also how this document had been distributed.