Hold a press conference, go to jail

(All your press conferences are belong to us)

With a busier schedule, this blog had become mostly defunct. I might try to post here a bit more frequently now that I have more time. No promises, however. There has been just too much stuff to report on: the Yongsan tragedy, ongoing canal development, irregular workers movement, the ridiculous New Right movement, the investigation into Roh, Youtube's appropriate response to the real name system, the Minerva witch-hunt, and so on...

On top of all that there is the recent phemenon of breaking up press conferences and calling them protests. Tragicomic, all of it. From the Hankyoreh,

Civic and social groups actively contest curtailment of rights

Civic and social groups have begun launching an active response to police suppression that has been citing press conferences as illegal gatherings and rounding participants for arrest.

Several human rights groups joined in solidarity to present a petition on the police suppression of press conferences to the National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) on Wednesday. Before presenting the petition, they held a press conference...

Park Ju-min, a lawyer and member of MINBYUN-Lawyers for a Democratic Society, said, “We have even been hearing that there is an internal directive to regard all press conferences where slogans are chanted and banners hung as illegal gatherings.” Park added, “It is only possible to become a nation that promotes human rights when freedoms of assembly and expression are observed.”

Participants in the press conference made references to both the arrest of six civic group members who were in front of the National Police Agency building Monday protesting the arrest of people attending events commemorating the first anniversary of the candlelight vigil demonstrations, and the arrest of 49 university students who were holding a press conference and head-shaving ceremony on April 10.

Police have been ramping up their interventions of press conferences recently by broadcasting warnings and measuring noise levels. In reference to this, Jinbo Corea spokesperson Jang Man-seok said the police have “established a position to shut off all expressions of political ideas, including press conferences.”

Observers are criticizing the police’s approach of treating press conferences as illegal gatherings as an exploitation of loopholes in the law. “There are no stipulations on assemblies in the Law on Assemblies and Demonstrations, and the stipulations on protests are vague. The police are exploiting this, and are arbitrarily designating press conferences as assemblies,” said Park Ju-min.

Slow Posting

Been slow posting these days, because, well, work and life are too busy. However, with the global financial crisis and LMB's continuing show, I feel like there is a mountain of things to post on. Alas, hopefully, there shall be time for that later. For the moment, however, this photo, from the Hankyoreh, is very interesting and mimics that famous moment from the 1989 protests in Tienanmen square.

Disarming appearance



As tanks roll down Tehran Street in the Gangnam district during a parade commemorating Army Day on October 1, Kang Ui-seok, 22, a law student at Seoul National University, goes nude to urge the government to dissolve the army.

Kang appeared suddenly at 4:20 p.m and commenced with a short role play in which he brandished a fake gun he had made out of snack food, putting a stop to the parade for about 30 seconds. Kang was arrested immediately.

Police said that prior to the parade, Kang hid for 12 hours in a trench he had dug himself.


According to police, Kang said that If Korea were to dissolve its army, it could help underdeveloped countries by saving the lives of starving children. In explaining his demonstration, Kang said that he had appeared in the nude to symbolize the condition of being unarmed and was meant to evoke peace and nonviolence.

The police booked him on charges of obscenity later that day.

buddha background

Hye Jin Kim from Global Voices Online has a good overview of the motivating factors behind the continuing protests by buddhists here, including some of the reactions from netizens like the one below:

On the date when 200,000 Buddhists started the protest, the government announced a beautiful spy scandal like Mata Hari. What did the National Intelligence Service do for 10 years? I knew someday soon North Korean spies would be arrested once the government changed. And a beautiful spy who has sex as her weapon was sensationally caught on the same date when those Buddhists gathered. As history has proved so far, the moment of the public announcement is perfect this time again. The story is so similar with those you can see in Sunday Seoul or Sunday Newspaper. I read what she has done. In the technological period of the 21st century, what she did was to find information that we ordinary people can even simply find through searching on google, and using gps and the internet. Wow… she is such a stupid spy. I really don’t understand what North Korea tried to do with her.[…] Restoration of Baek-gol-dan and female North Korean spy… It seems that we return to 20 years back. Maybe, Samchung Revival Camp and control of hair and skirt lengths will start again.[…]

buddhists protest

From today's Hankyoreh:

Buddhists protest perceived bias in Lee administration
200,000 protesters demand apology from President Lee and resignation of National Police Agency Chief Eo

In what was the first event of its kind, approximately 200,000 Buddhists belonging to 27 Buddhist denominations protested in downtown Seoul on August 27 against what they called religious discrimination on the part of President Lee Myung-bak’s administration.

The Ven. Wonhak, head of the organizing committee for what was called the “All Buddhists’ Assembly for Denouncing the Lee Myung-bak Administration’s Constitution-Destroying Religious Discrimination,” said that Korean Buddhism is in the most “distressful” state it has been in “since it came to Korea 1,700 years ago.”

“Buddhism has been kicked out into the street by thoughtless fanatics who dream of a Christian republic,” he said.


Monks and regular believers filled the streets in front of Seoul City Hall, from Taepyeongno and Deoksu Palace to the corner of the Hanwha Building.

Kim Kwang-jun, an Anglican priest who is head of the National Council of Churches of Korea’s Committee on Interfaith Dialogue, issued a statement of solidarity.

“As a Christian I apologize for cases of religious discrimination, like when Rev. Jang Gyeong-dong caused controversy for insulting Buddhism,” said Kim. “The Lee administration has discarded the principle of separation of church and state and even the principles of democracy, all in the name of pragmatism.”

Protesters issued a resolution demanding an open apology from President Lee, the resignation of National Police Agency Chief Eo Cheong-soo, the legislation of a prohibition on religious discrimination, and “favorable consideration” by the authorities for people wanted for involvement in the candlelight protests.

Organizers said they will be operating a “Religious Discrimination Monitoring Group” to determine whether President Lee takes action in good faith on their demands, and that they will organize similar protests across the country if he does not.

In the afternoon, protesters marched to Jogye Temple, going from the Sejongno intersection to Jonggak and on to Ujeonggugno. The police mobilized approximately 7,000 police officers from 85 riot police units.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government says it will fine the organizers for “using” Seoul City Hall Plaza without a permit.

Oh se chul arrested

This is from the Korea Times:

Economist Nabbed for Praising Socialism

By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter

Police arrested a renowned economist for speaking out against capitalism, which is in violation of the National Security Law. Civic groups and academics are criticizing the government for suppressing so-called progressive scholars over false information.

Some are worrying whether these new moves will bring back the ``public security'' era when police used excessive force against people under the name of ``keeping the peace'' in the authoritarian era of the 1970s and 1980s.

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said Wednesday it had arrested Oh Se-cheol, honorary professor at Yonsei University, and seven other Socialist Workers League of Korea members on Tuesday. The eight are now being questioned in Ogin-dong, central Seoul, over whether they have criticized capitalism and praised socialism as well as other acts considered benefiting the enemy ― the North Korea.

The police spokesman said Oh, chairman of the league, and others have released leaflets and other materials denouncing liberal capitalism. The group's flags were seen at the candlelit protests against U.S. beef imports, he added.

The investigative body also said Oh openly sought the establishment of a revolutionary socialist group saying, ``We are the revolutionary forces that declare the world proletarian revolution publicly and express the determination to struggle with the proletariat of the world including Korea in the history of the workers' movement and communist movement in Korea after 1945,'' on the group's Web site.

However, academia and others are criticizing the police's moves since Oh is well known for denouncing North Korea. Roh Hoe-chan of the minor New Progressive Party said, ``Oh and his groups constantly said the North has been polluted with other ideas in socialism, which all socialists should `refrain from following'. Shouldn't the group be defined as anti-North Korean?''

About 10 civic groups held protests in front of the investigation room saying, ``Why should they be punished for talking about what they believe in, which is obviously not praising the enemy?''

``Oh criticized capitalism even under the military junta in the 1970s but was never prosecuted for violating the law. I do not understand the government's ethics on the issue,'' Prof. Han Sang-hee of Konkuk University said calling for the government's respect on a variety of social ideas.

Some speculate the investigation will see a revival of the debate about whether the National Security Law should be abolished. The law bans all kinds of praise, promotion or sympathy toward the enemy. In this case, the enemy is North Korea, experts say.

Since a reconciliation mood swept the Han peninsula in 2000, there were only two other cases of such groups being involved in violation of the law. During the Roh Moo-hyun administration, the law was submitted for abolishment at the National Assembly.

Meanwhile, Suwon District Public Prosecutors' Office said it caught a female North Korean spy disguised as a defector. According to the office, 34-year-old Won Jeong-hwa disguised herself as a defector in China, married a South Korean man and came to the South in 2001. Then she contacted several military officers and handed over confidential information to the North.

The office has also arrested a military captain who handed over information and another man for delivering such stuff to the North.

regular/irregular

In the news today:

Gap between regular and irregular workers has grown
Widening difference in salaries and income growth between the two groups since irregular worker protection law was implemented

A survey has revealed that since July of last year, right around the time a law to protect irregular workers went into effect, the income gap between regular and irregular workers in their 20s and 30s grew.

The company Incruit took a look at the 2006 and 2008 first-half wages (based on fixed salaries) of about 30,000 of its own website members between the ages 20 and 39. The data, released Monday, shows that the salary gap between the regular and irregular workers grew by almost 100,000 won in the two-year period. In the first half of 2008, the average monthly salary of regular workers at the company was 2.282 million won, while that of irregular workers was 74 percent of that at 1.689 million won, producing a gap of 593,000 won. The gap had grown from two years earlier. In 2006, the average monthly salary of regular workers was 2.154 million won, while that of irregular workers was 77.1% of that at 1.661 million won, producing a difference of 493,000 won.

There was also a difference in income growth -- this year, regular workers made 5.9 percent more than they did two years ago, while irregular workers only made 1.7 percent more.


This trend can be confirmed in a March survey by the Korea National Statistical Office. In 2007, the salary of irregular workers was 64.1 percent of that of regular workers.; this year, it had fallen to 60.5 percent.

Song Min-jung, a researcher at the Samsung Economic Research Institute, believes that the quality of employment for irregular workers fell after the protection law went into effect, with many irregular workers switching to by-the-hour work or dispatch work with poor working conditions.

Signs of reaction

Two worrying stories for Korean civil society from today's Hankyoreh below. Some more conservative readers might assert that the government is just asserting law and order in this case. But without laws governing protest that conform in practice and operation to basic freedoms of assembly or association, results like this are bound to happen as it becomes very easy to pin a demonstration on a particular organization or have stuff removed from the internet by decree rather than principled investigation. Anyways, it should be clear that these two stories are simply signs of reaction, which in the end seem certain to alienate people from the current government as they undermine basic normative principles of civil society.

Photo is from CINA.

Arrest warrant issued for 3 KCTU leaders
37 other KCTU leaders summoned for questioning in growing crackdown on candlelight protest organizers

Police began tracking down three leaders of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions on July 24 after a court issued a warrant to arrest them on charges of playing a leading role in organizing large-scale strikes and candlelight demonstrations against U.S. beef imports. The KCTU, one of the nation’s two largest labor umbrella organizations, strongly protested the move, saying they had been “targeted by police.”

Immediately after the court issued the warrant to arrest the three KCTU leaders, Chairman Lee Seok-haeng, Deputy Chairman Jin Young-ok and Secretary-General Lee Yong-sik, the Seoul Yeongdeungpo Police Station dispatched hundreds of police officers, some of them plain-clothed, and cordoned off the KCTU office in an aggressive move demonstrating its will to arrest them.

“Chairman Lee and others played a leading role in massive strikes held by the KCTU to demand renegotiations of beef deal,” a police officer said. “Last year, they also refused to be summoned on charges of masterminding a strike and occupying E-Land stores, in spite of several calls for them to appear. We plan to combine all pending charges to date and conduct an investigation into the KCTU leadership.”


Saying that strikes led by the KCTU on July 2 illegal, prosecution and police ordered 37 senior leaders of the KCTU, including Chairman Lee, to appear for questioning. Arrest warrants were issued for nine of the 37 leaders, including Chairman Lee and Yoon Hae-mo, the chief of Hyundai Motor Co.’s labor union.

In a press conference held at the KCTU office later in the day, Chairman Lee said, “The police action is unfair political suppression of a fair exercise of the right to defend the health of people and laborers. The government of President Lee Myung-bak must immediately stop its suppression.”

NPA orders Google to remove video from YouTube
Footage reports on allegations that NPA Chief’s brother invested in a hotel linked to prostitution

Controversy is flaring after an Internet crime investigation unit of the National Police Agency was found to have ordered Google Inc.’s YouTube, the world’s most popular video-sharing Web site, to remove footage from a South Korean TV report about allegations that a company in which a brother of NPA Chief Eo Cheong-soo invested was involved in prostitution. The NPA also ordered domestic Internet portals such as Naver and Daum to delete the video footage, which was originally televised by Munhwa Broadcasting Corp.’s Busan branch. Under South Korean laws governing the Internet, a person can ask an Internet portal to remove information from its Web site if the information defames the person in question. The NPA has been accused of taking unlawful and excessive action towards Internet portals, where freedom of expression and communications should be guaranteed, to defend the reputation of the NPA chief’s family.

On July 24, an official at Google’s Korea unit said, “We received an official statement on May 27 from the NPA’s cyber terrorism countermeasure team demanding that we delete video footage about a brother of NPA Commissioner General Eo Cheong-soo, citing defamation. That evening, we temporarily deleted two pieces of video footage. The Internet Protocol addresses for both pieces of video footage are blocked so users in South Korea can’t access them,” the official said. The NPA was found to have sent the same official statement to other local Internet portals such as Naver and Daum as well as video-sharing Web sites.

The original footage, aired by MBC’s Busan branch on April 23, reported that the brother of NPA Commissioner General Eo had allegedly managed a hotel that allowed prostitution. The report was credited with the “This Month’s Journalist” award from the Journalist Association of Korea in June. Yang Guen-won, the head of the NPA’s Internet crime investigation unit, said police had “sent an official letter, according to legal procedure, after judging that the controversial report broadcast by Busan MBC is related to the reputation of the entire police organization, not just Commissioner General Eo Cheong-soo himself.”


However, critics blamed the NPA for taking excessive action because, under the current laws, it has no right to ask Internet portals to delete the video footage and it has not taken any legal action, such as filing a complaint with the Press Arbitration Commission.

Kim Gap-bae, an attorney, said, “The Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection permits a person to ask an Internet portal to remove posted material if the person feels they have been defamed. For defamation cases involving public officials, in particular, an individual, not a state organization, should file the complaint.”

Unlike domestic Internet portals, Google’s Korean unit strictly bans it from editing materials posted on its Web site. Google’s Korean unit asked a legal department at its U.S. headquarters to sort out whether the video footage could cause defamation, and Google’s U.S. headquarters replied that it could not be constituted as such. In spite of the reply, Google’s Korean unit had still blocked the footage for 56 days, or until July 23, when The Hankyoreh began investigating the issue.

This means that South Koreans cannot watch the video footage on the Korean-language version of the YouTube Web site, but the footage is still available at other YouTube sites based in the United States and other nations.

Internet users have criticized the police and Google’s Korean unit, saying, “Police are curbing freedom of expression on the Internet unconditionally, making the country a state in which censorship still exists.”