Nine members of a local activist group have been indicted on charges of carrying out pro-Pyongyang propaganda activities in violation of the country’s security law, South Korean prosecutors said Sunday.

The nine are under suspicion of having secret meetings regularly to praise North Korea and support the communist regime’s demands for various inter-Korean issues, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office said.

South Korea’s National Security Law prohibits citizens from forming organizations that praise, encourage or propagandize the communist North.

The so-called “sopoong” is a Seoul-based organization formed in 2006 by pro-North activists. The group claims its goal is to call for the reunification of the two Koreas. (Yonhap News)