Rights group hits North Korea on broadcast jamming

SEOUL, May 24 (Reuters) North Korea has resumed blocking short-wave radio broadcasts originating outside the reclusive country after a break of a few months, an international media group said today.

Reporters Without Borders said in a statement posted on its Web site (http://www.rsf.org) that energy shortages in impoverished North Korea had prevented the communist regime from jamming short-wave Korean-language broadcasts since July.

The jamming of broadcasts - which the North has done for more than a half-century -- had now resumed, the media watchdog said, linking it to a campaign to prevent South Korean culture from infiltrating the totalitarian state.

''North and South Korea are celebrating the historic reopening of a railway line between the two countries, yet the Pyongyang regime is trying to stop North Koreans from getting news other than that served up by the regime,'' the organisation said.

''This is a violation of international law,'' the Paris-based watchdog said.

Two trains, one from the North and the other from the South, crossed the heavily fortified border between the two states last week, restoring an artery severed in the 1950-53 fratricidal war and fanning dreams of unification.

In April North Korea's ruling Worker's Party denounced news from the outside world it alleged was aimed at destabilising the regime and ordered security forces to stop all video cassettes, written material, mobile phones and CDs from entering the country, the media watchdog said.

The jamming may have been part of these measures or linked to the reopening of the railway, it said.

Free North Korea Radio, Voice of America, Open Radio for North Korea, Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Chosun, all based in South Korea or the United States, have had their broadcasts jammed, Reporters Without Borders said.

REUTERS AK VC1522