Retweet lands South Korean man in jail
Mike Gallagher
Retweeting may be one of the most casual possible gestures, but it may also have eaed a South Korea man a jail sentence of up to seven years.
Park Jeonggeun's offending retweet? \"Long live Kim Jong-Il,\" a reference to the deceased leader of North Korea, who died in December.
It's illegal under South Korea's National Security Law to commit \"acts benefiting the enemy\" -- the enemy in question being South Korea's neighbor to the north. (Park tweets, in Korean, under the handle \"seouldecadence.\")
Authorities were apparently not swayed by Park's follow-up tweet, which involved an \"altered\" photo of \"a smiling North Korean soldier holding a weapon, adding [Park's] own frowning face and a bottle of whiskey.\" Amnesty Inteational has spoken out in Park's defense, accusing South Korean leaders of \"failing to understand sarcasm.\"
