SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea plans to deport a Korean-American woman accused of praising rival North Korea in a recent lecture, officials said Friday, in the latest in a series of cases that critics say infringe on freedom of speech. 
 
 In this Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2015, photo, California-resident Shin Eun-mi, center, talks to the reporters at Seoul District Prosecutors' Office in Seoul, South Korea. South Korean officials said Friday,... (Associated Press) 
 
 The Korea Immigration Service decided to deport Shin Eun-mi, a California resident, after determining that her comments violated South Korea's Security Law, agency official Kim Du-yeol said. He declined to say when she would be deported, citing privacy issues. 
 
 The Korean Peninsula remains technically in a state of war, split along the world's most heavily fortified border, because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. In South Korea, praising North Korea can be punished by up to seven years in prison under the Security Law. 
 
 Critics have urged that the law be scrapped, saying it violates freedom of expression. Supporters argue that it is needed because of continuing threats from North Korea. Past authoritarian leaders in South Korea frequently used the law to suppress political rivals. 
 
 Shin posted stories about her trips to North Korea on OhmyNews, a popular South Korean online news site. Her book on her trips was included in a government-designated reading list in 2013, but the culture ministry removed it this week amid criticism of it. Ministry officials said they will seek to retrieve 1,200 copies that were distributed to libraries across South Korea. 
 
 During a November lecture in Seoul, Shin said many North Korean defectors living in South Korea had told her they want to go back home and that North Koreans hope new leader Kim Jong Un will bring change. She also praised the taste of North Korean beer and the cleanliness of North Korea's rivers. 
 
 Shin has said she had no intention of praising the country and was only expressing what she felt during her travels there. 
 
 Conservatives have sided with government moves to expel Shin, accusing her of ignoring North Korea's abysmal human rights conditions. But her impending deportation drew sharp criticism from liberals who say the conservative government of President Park Geun-hye is clamping down on freedom of speech. 
 
 "The decision to deport her is a clear violation of human rights," the Hankyoreh newspaper said in an editorial Friday. "The government is taking the lead in trampling on human rights." 
 
 In October, prosecutors indicted a Japanese journalist on charges he defamed Park by reporting rumors that she was absent for seven hours on the day of a ferry disaster last April because she was with a man. Last month, the Constitutional Court ordered the dissolution of a small leftist party that officials say advocated a North Korean-style socialist system. 
 
 In an article published by OhmyNews, Shin said she will never return to South Korea because her "mother country" no longer wants her. 
 
 In December, a high school student threw a homemade explosive device toward a podium where she was speaking, injuring two people. Shin was unhurt. The student was sent to a juvenile detention center and is awaiting trial. 
 
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 Associated Press writer Kim Tong-hyung contributed to this report. ||||| North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivers a New Year's address in this January 1, 2015 photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang. REUTERS/KCNA 
 
 SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea rejected on Friday a South Korean call for the resumption of stalled talks, a setback for efforts to reduce tension on the peninsula after the North Korean leader made a surprise New Year call for a summit. 
 
 South Korea’s parliament called last month for a resumption of negotiations on various issues including North Korea’s human rights, and families still separated by the 1950-53 Korean War. 
 
 But an official at South Korea’s Ministry of Unification, which handles inter-Korean affairs, said the North had rejected the proposal, without giving a reason. 
 
 South Korea has also proposed inter-Korean talks be held this month, but North Korea has not yet responded to that specific offer. 
 
 The rejection of the South Korean parliament’s call comes during a period of heightened tension between North Korea and the United States, which is South Korea’s main ally. 
 
 North Korea on Thursday warned the United States of a “war disaster” if it did not withdraw sanctions imposed by Washington following a crippling hacking attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment. 
 
 North Korea has denied it had any involvement in the hacking. 
 
 North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said in a New Year’s address he was open to a summit with the South.
– "Depending on the mood and circumstances to be created, we have no reason not to hold the highest-level talks [with South Korea]" was one of the most unexpected statements that came out of Kim Jong Un's New Year's speech from Pyongyang in which he said he'd be open to a summit with his southern counterparts. But that amenable mood to conversing has apparently changed, as the North Korean leader today dismissed a request from South Korea's parliament to resume negotiations on hot-button issues such as human rights and families still separated by the Korean War, Reuters reports. An official from the South's Ministry of Unification says that the North gave no reason for turning down the request. Part of the North's sudden (but not terribly surprising) about-face may be that it's still peeved at South Korea's major ally, the US, for sanctions after the Sony hack, Reuters notes. South Korea's not exactly thrilled with its neighbor lately, either—and that distaste has recently been stirred up by a Korean-American woman (whom the South is now trying to deport) who talked up the great taste of North Korean beer and the country's clean rivers, reports AP. A third, more remote possibility why the Supreme Leader can't find the time to meet: birthday eyebrow wax? (Adding fuel to the fire: South Korea says its northern foe has a 6,000-member cyberarmy.)