A South Korean student association has accused Seoul’s spy agency of “illegally” monitoring its members in an attempt to frame them as pro-North Korean, though the National Intelligence Service (NIS) denied that such surveillance is against the law. 

The Korean University Progressive Union alleges that members of the group caught an NIS agent secretly taking photos of them on March 22. The members managed to get hold of the man’s phone, which was “filled with photos and videos of the union members and their acquaintances that had been taken while they were being followed from March 5,” according to a statement by the group.