[The Public = Reporter Kim Jong-yeon] Allegations are mounting that the Blue House’s Office of Civil Affairs intervened after the Chungbuk Provincial Police Agency came under review for failing to remove a poster displaying the Yoon administration’s national policy goals. The National Police Agency says it opened the probe on its own, but critics say that explanation leaves gaps in the timeline.
According to political sources on the 14th, the National Police Agency dispatched two inspection officers to the Chungbuk police agency and began examining its administrative division and public service desk. The episode began when Kim So-yeon, a People Power Party lawyer and co-CEO of the Hwang & C law firm, visited the Chungbuk police public service desk on the 27th of last month, found a poster of the former Yoon administration’s national policy goals still hanging on the wall, and posted a photo on her social media.
Kim wrote that she had visited “a certain police agency” and posted the photo with comments such as “I was so happy I almost cried” and “It moves me just to look at it,” referring to a poster that read “Korea Again! A New Nation of the People.”
After her post, events accelerated. On the 6th, the National Police Agency reportedly ordered police offices nationwide to check whether their national policy posters had been replaced.
That same day, Kim said a public service desk official told her, when she asked “When did the policy goals change?,” that “we received orders this morning to replace them.”
On Facebook, Kim wrote, “I posted last week about our Yoon Suk-yeol government’s national policy sign on display at a police agency, and this morning they say police departments and stations nationwide have swapped out their signs.” She added, “What national goals could Lee Jae-myung have had? His only aim was to get charges dropped and to cover up crimes. They couldn’t even change a single sign for nearly a year after the regime change, but once this became an issue they rushed to replace them.”
Reports say the Chungbuk public service desk removed the former Yoon administration poster on the 30th of last month and posted the Lee Jae-myung administration’s policy poster on the 8th. The Chungbuk administrative division reportedly received the Lee administration’s draft policy goals in January but did not pass them on to the public service desk.
The central question is how the National Police Agency identified Chungbuk as the target for inspection. Kim’s post referred only to “a provincial police agency,” not to Chungbuk by name.
Despite that, the National Police Agency launched an inspection specifically targeting Chungbuk. Politicians and observers suspect the Blue House’s Office of Civil Affairs monitored Kim’s social media, traced her visit records and then ordered the inspection. If officials reviewed her visit logs, that sequence would be possible.
Yonhap News reported that some sources suggested the Office of Civil Affairs had confirmed the issue through Kim’s post and ordered the inspection.
The National Police Agency moved quickly to contain the controversy. On the 14th it issued a statement saying reports that the inspection was ordered by the Blue House were false and that the agency was conducting the inspection on its own judgment.
But that brief explanation did not describe how the agency itself uncovered the detailed sequence from Kim’s social media post to the nationwide sweep order to Chungbuk being singled out.
Another immediate question is regulatory: rules require national policy posters to be displayed only in offices and meeting rooms of senior superintendents and above. Frontline public service desks are not required to post them.
Still, critics argue that sending two headquarters inspectors to review Chungbuk’s administration division and public service desk does not look like a routine internal decision. A legal insider said, “Sending headquarters inspectors over an issue that is not subject to disciplinary action suggests a chain of events that’s hard to explain without assuming outside pressure.”
Opposition figures warn this inspection could be an early sign that the new administration plans to use investigative agencies to silence critics.
They caution that if a single citizen’s social media post showing a former administration’s policy poster becomes a pretext for inspecting frontline officers, then future government criticism or the exposure of remnants from prior administrations could be treated as grounds for inspection.
