A civic group on Wednesday demanded the prosecution drop its plan to monitor Internet postings for defamatory remarks and false rumors. 

The Seoul-based People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy made the demand in a letter sent to Prosecutor General Kim Jin-tae. 

The prosecution has vowed to preemptively respond to defamation and the spread of false rumors in cyberspace by "monitoring" major portals and social network services on a real-time basis. 

"The prosecution's plan is an outright declaration that it will conduct surveillance and monitoring of people in cyberspace," the group said in a news conference that closely followed its submission of the letter. 

Noting that the prosecution unveiled the plan just two days after President Park Geun-hye said that netizens' insults of their president went over the line, the group said that the envisioned monitoring "would only serve to protect the positions of the president and the government, not the honor of the people."(Yonhap)