The Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office said Sunday it has launched an investigation into left-wing Unified Progressive Party chairwoman Lee Jeong-hee on the charge of violating the National Security Act.

Conservative civic groups including Hwalbindan filed a complaint against Lee last week with allegations that her party supported Pyongyang by defining the joint military drills by South Korea and the United States as an attempt to invade and seize the North and that it criticized the U.N. sanctions against the North’s Feb. 12 nuclear test.

The prosecutors said they plan to call in the accuser in the near future to answer questions on the details of the complaint.

The UPP’s think tank on March 8 had called the Seoul-Washington drills a “war exercise to invade the North” in its statement. As criticisms flowed in, the party revised the expression to say “exercise in offense against North Korea.”

The National Security Act enacted in 1960 bans any anti-state activities by benefiting or praising the communist North.

(jhl@heraldcorp.com)