\n<\/p>\n
And the two Koreas launched leaflet-laden balloons into each other\u2019s airspace. Millions of such leaflets vilifying the other side\u2019s government were scattered<\/a> over the Korean Peninsula, material that both Koreas banned their people from reading or keeping. In the South, the police rewarded children with pencils and other school supplies when they found the leaflets in the hills and reported them.<\/p>\n But until fairly recently, balloons from North Korea seldom carried common trash.<\/p>\n By the 1990s, it was clear that the North\u2019s propaganda was losing its relevance as the South\u2019s economy pulled ahead. The South had become a vibrant democracy and a global export powerhouse, while the North suffered chronic food shortages and relied on a personality cult and a total information blackout to control its people.<\/p>\n When their leaders held the first inter-Korean summit meeting in 2000, the two Koreas agreed to end government-sponsored efforts to influence each other\u2019s citizens. But North Korean defectors<\/a> and conservative and Christian activists in the South carried on the information war<\/a>, sending balloons laden with mini-Bibles, transistor radios, household medicine, computer thumb drives containing K-pop music and drama, and leaflets that called Mr. Kim a \u201cpig.\u201d<\/p>\n To them, their payloads contained \u201ctruth\u201d and \u201cfreedom of expression\u201d that would help awaken North Koreans from their government\u2019s brainwashing. To Pyongyang, they were nothing more than political \u201cfilth,\u201d and North Korean leaders vowed to retaliate in kind.<\/a><\/p>\n Then the government in Seoul enacted a law that banned the sending of leaflets to the North, saying they did little more than provoke Pyongyang. But a few years later, in 2023, a court ruled the law unconstitutional, and last month the activists resumed launching balloons.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have tried something they have always been doing, but I cannot understand why they are making a fuss as if they were hit by a shower of bullets,\u201d Kim Yo-jong, Mr. Kim\u2019s sister and spokeswoman, said last week. \u201cIf they experience how unpleasant the feeling of picking up filth is and how tired it is, they will know that it is not easy to dare talk about freedom of expression.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\nA court decision allowed the balloons to fly again.<\/h2>\n