The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, a bipartisan caucus of the US House of Representatives, hosted a hearing Thursday on South Korea’s law that criminalizes the dispersal of propaganda leaflets to North Korea.

Witnesses raised concerns that the law may limit the freedom of speech of South Koreans and others working to promote human rights. They criticized not only the law but also human rights and democracy in South Korea.

Gordon Chang, an expert on North Korea, said that the South Korean government was reversing decades of democratization. He said that President Moon Jae-in has pushed South Korea towards North Korea’s definition of democracy. He also raised an issue with the government’s attempt to erase “free” from “free democracy,” an expression in history textbooks that describes South Korea’s political systems.

Chang also mentioned a separate South Korean law that prohibits slandering or distortion of the 1980 Gwangju Democratic Uprising. He said that it gives the government wide latitude to criticize critics.

Greg Scarlatoius, the executive director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea in Washington said that the major significance of the hearing is that the US does care about the state of democracy and freedom and human rights in South Korea.

The commission has held hearings on human rights situations in autocratic states. It is a shame for South Korea that its democracy and freedom of speech were dealt with at the human rights hearing.

The Moon regime invited the disgrace.

Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, condemned groups of North Korean defectors for flying anti-Pyongyang leaflets over the inter-Korean border. She told South Korea to do anything to stop it, such as making a law.

Then the ruling Democratic Party of Korea pushed through a bill to criminalize anti-North Korea leafleting.

The Moon government and the ruling party cited the safety of South Korean residents near the border. But almost everyone knows that they criminalized the leafleting because Kim’s sister told them to.

The Moon government repatriated two North Korean sailors of a wooden boat quickly in 2019. They expressed intention to defect to South Korea, but authorities raised issue with suspicions they had killed colleagues on the boat. A special police unit blindfolded them and took them to Panmunjom for repatriation. One of the sailors is said to have plunked down to see North Korean soldiers who were waiting to take them over.

Criticisms about the Moon regime’s disregard of human rights and freedom of speech are not limited to North Korea.

A man in his 20s was fined for a poster critical of Moon, though the university where it was put up did not want him to be punished.

A man in his 50s was charged with insulting Moon by throwing a shoe toward him, but the court did not order detention. Later, however, he was arrested during an anti-Moon rally and jailed while other demonstrators were released. In a rare move, the court extended his detention, though prosecutors did not make the request.

The Ministry of Unification dismissed the commission as a policy study group of lawmakers. Jeong Se-hyun, the executive vice chairperson of the National Unification Advisory Council who is regarded as Moon’s mentor on North Korea, called the hearing “a sort of interference in domestic affairs.” A ruling party lawmaker close to Moon said such a hearing based on prejudices must never be held again.

But the US State Department buttressed the hearing. It said that South Korea as a democracy with an independent and strong judiciary has tools in place to allow for review of the leafleting law. This was a message that the law is a major concern not only to Congress but also to the US administration.

Rep. Christopher Smith, co-chair of the commission, said that the hearing was only a beginning, not an end. It may be held frequently, depending on actions by the Moon administration.

The Joe Biden administration that emphasizes human rights may reflect testimonies at the hearing in its policy. So far as human rights are concerned, it is right to comply with universal principles without exceptions.