Woo Sang-ho: "If the People Power Party considers the fishermen's repatriation such an anti-humanitarian crime, why did they remain silent back then?"

"The issue being raised now is political"

[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Ju-yeon] Woo Sang-ho, Emergency Response Committee Chairman of the Democratic Party of Korea, on the 14th, regarding the People Power Party's criticism of the 'North Korean Defector Fishermen Repatriation Incident' as a 'crime against humanity and inhumane act,' said, "Why did they not protest at that time and only raise the issue now?" and added, "It can only be seen as politically motivated."

Woo Sang-ho, Emergency Response Committee Chairman of the Democratic Party of Korea, is attending the Emergency Response Committee meeting held at the National Assembly on the 8th and delivering opening remarks. Photo by Yoon Dong-joo doso7@

On the same day, Woo appeared on YTN Radio's 'News King with Park Ji-hoon' and said, "This incident clearly involves vicious criminals who killed 16 fishermen and crossed over. They did not originally intend to defect to the Republic of Korea but tried to escape to Jagang Province or elsewhere," adding, "It is difficult to see this as a pure defection, so they were repatriated on the grounds of criminal extradition, but the People Power Party keeps raising this as an issue."

He continued, "I want to ask the People Power Party lawmakers, if this was such an inhumane and crime against humanity, why did you remain silent when the repatriation happened? If you were truly outraged by this incident, you should have raised the issue and fought at the time the repatriation occurred," he pointed out.

Woo said, "The current criticism can only be seen as politically motivated," and criticized, "(The issue raising) is not sincere."

Regarding the Ministry of Unification, which released photos of the repatriation, Woo also said, "The Ministry of Unification is also annoying; they said it was right at the time, but then changed their stance because the minister changed," and added, "Reversing the decision just because the minister changed is harassing the public officials. They do it because they are told to, but how much conscience do they have?"

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.