North Korean people launched hundreds of balloons carrying “filth” over the border as “gifts” for South Korea, the leader’s sister said late Wednesday, mockingly justifying the launches as citizens’ exercise of “freedom of expression” against anti-DPRK leaflets.

In a statement, Kim Yo Jong implied that citizens carried out the balloon launches, while simultaneously stating that the launches were in accordance with an earlier defense ministry warning that the country would scatter “mounds of wastepaper and filth” into South Korea. 

Kim’s statement notably mirrored the ROK government’s rationale for allowing activists to launch anti-regime leaflets into the DPRK, after the Constitutional