N. Korean dogma sites may be banned by Seoul

South Korea may ban access to a Web site of North Korea’s Kim Il-sung University to stop the communist state’s ideology from spreading among the South’s Internet-savvy young, an official said on Friday.

The move comes amid squabbles in South Korea’s parliament over scrapping or revising the National Security Law that restricts contacts with the north. The issue has taken on a bitter ideological tone because North Korea has consistently demanded repeal of the act.

“We have received an official request from police to ban access to the Web site and referred the case to an ethics committee,” Chung Dae-soon, an Information Ministry official in charge of the case, said by telephone.

“If the committee concludes it violates the security law, we would ban access soon,” he added.

The Korean-language Web site (www.ournation-school.com) offers distance learning and replaces 42 years of educational radio broadcasts, the JoongAng Daily newspaper reported.

The site features animated pictures but is a far cry from jazzy South Korean sites and lists courses on the country’s ideology and leaders.

Kim Il-sung, the late North Korean leader, mixed Marxism and ultra-nationalism to form his country’s go-it-alone Juche ideology. He founded the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in 1948 and ruled it unchallenged until his death in July 1994.

In the first communist dynastic succession, his son Kim Jong-il inherited power from his father, who has been named “Eternal President”.

“The Web site is unilaterally cramming young citizens with Juche ideology which runs counter to public sentiment,” said a police official who declined to be named.

“We need to block access to resources of one-sided information or knowledge which ordinary people can obtain easily.”

Police had asked the government to block 31 North Korean-related Web sites, he added.

The South’s president, Roh Moo-hyun, wants to scrap or revise the security law, saying it is a relic of the country’s 1970s and 1980s military dictatorships.

But the conservative opposition argues the law is still needed because North Korea has never renounced its goal of overthrowing the South by force — as Pyongyang tried to do when it invaded in 1950, sparking the three-year Korean War.

South and North Korea are still technically at war since the conflict ended in armed truce without a peace treaty.

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