On July 24 and 25 the Intelligence Service searched the house and office of the chief editor of magazine Minjok 21 on the suspicion that he perpetrated an espionage act on someone's "instructions", the statement noted.

Such repression of this legitimate magazine acting for the implementation of the June 15 joint declaration is a move to put down the reunification movement and gag the progressive media, it charged.

The IS and other ultra-right conservative forces, the statement said, are now orchestrating such unprecedented burlesques for suppression as the "case of the Iljin Association" one after another while talking about "instructions of the north", "espionage act" and the like.

The flunkeyist and traitorous forces seeking war and confrontation while hindering peace and reunification will surely face a stern punishment by the nation, the statement warned, urging the Lee Myung Bak "government" and the IS to stop at once the frantic suppression.