CINA

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A Small Victory for the S.K. Democracy(?)

The Seoul Central District Court denied a police request on late Thursday night

for warrants to detain Oh Se-cheol and six other leading activists of the Socialist Workers League of Korea (SWLK) while officers investigated their roles in "forming an allegedly anti-state organization", a "violation of the National 'Security' Law". Oh and his comrades were released around 11:40 p.m. on Thursday. But the cops "will also further investigate the seven socialists and seek another warrant"(!!!), according to JoongAng Ilbo. 

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..함께합시다 

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8.27 Buddhists' Mass Demonstration Against Discrimination:

"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..", The Hankyoreh reported today about the event (here's the entire article!).

Yesterday also Korea Times (Buddhists Urge President to Apologize) reported about it..
But, in my opinion, very "remarkable" are some of the comments to the article! Here just a few examples:

jsburgeson   (59.5.86.36)   08-27-2008 18:44  
These monks are harboring anti-state fugitives wanted by the law. If the police searched a monk's car leaving the temple grounds looking for one of these fugitives, it is not "religious prejudice or persecution." It is simply treating a monk the same as any other person whose car might be searched by the police if it looked suspicious. Are monks now above the law? Who's more arrogant here?

jsburgeson   (59.5.86.36)   08-27-2008 18:45  
I was at the "peaceful" Buddhist rally today they were handing "Lee Myung-bak OUT" placards, so if calling for the impeachment of a president is not hostile and poltical then I don't know what is. If Korea Times cannot report the true nature of this rally, then I hope all readers on this site will see clearly through their biased BS. Democracy cannot thrive without a REAL media to spread the TRUTH!

jsburgeson   (59.5.86.36)   08-27-2008 18:51  
"They also demanded the removal of members of the People's Association against Mad Cow Disease hiding in a Buddhist temple from a wanted list." On what grounds? Are these arrogant monks now in charge of the Ministry of Justice? These anti-government protest organizers have sent 500 police -- innocent young military conscripts -- to the hospital and I personally saw these protesters attacking ordinary citizens, hitting and kicking them over the course of weeks. These monks are simply pathetic!
 

Some more questions? I don't think so (^^)..

Related articles/reports/contributions..

☞ by VoP

☞ by OMN

☞ by KCTU

☞ by JoongAng Ilbo

☞ by Chosun Ilbo

☞ by "kotaji"

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In the last weeks, when we had to read articles/statements by the S.K. left media/organizations comparing the policy of the current (LMB) gov't with the (fascist) dictatorships in S.K.'s past, some people thought that such comparisons are (likely) a little to exaggerated. But after the "enjoyment" of following news...

Leftwing Academic Held for Subversion (Chosun Ilbo, 8.27)

Oh Se-cheol, a professor emeritus of Yonsei University and prominent leftwing academic, was arrested on Tuesday on charges of breaching the National Security Law. Oh’s arrest is seen as a start of a government crackdown on leftwing organizations which grew and expanded their realm of activities under the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations.
 

Seoul Metropolitan Police said they received an arrest warrant and a search and seizure warrant for eight members of the Socialist Workers League of Korea, including Oh, and arrested seven of them on Tuesday. Police seized CDs, computers and diaries in their homes and offices.

The SWLK was founded in February this year, and publicly proclaims its aim of building a revolutionary socialist labor party. It also aims for nationalization of business and financial groups and abolition of police and standing army.

However, this does not mean the SWLK is pro-North Korea: on its homepage it calls the North “a hierarchical anti-worker society that is exploitative and repressive” and “a reactionary regime that must be overthrown by the workers.”

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200808/200808270019.html

It's very remarkable, that "Oh’s arrest is seen as a start of a government crackdown on (other) leftwing organizations.." This may be a concrete threat against many other organizations in S.K., such as DLP ("The Socialist Alternative"), All Together ("Anti-capitalist Workers Movement"), several "radical" parts of the KCTU and other "peoples' resistance" groups and organizations...
SWLK may be only the first (supposed weak) target group, but the massive fleet of solidarity statements released since y'day by many other (student/workers/civil right...) groups shows that the S.K. progressive resistance is realizing the threat (*)!

Economist Nabbed for Praising Socialism.. (Korea Times)
 

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...

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/08/117_30105.html

☞ Police crack down on socialist organization (JoongAng Ilbo)

☞ This Is Not How Democracies Behave (The Marmot's Hole)

☞ Unusual Suspects (1) (OneFreeKorea)

* For example:

☞ MTU's Solidarity Statement

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Very latest news: Almost a half decade ago: The "Dear Leader" died (^^)!
Well, just "enjoy" following article published in last Sunday's JapanToday:

N Korea's Kim died in 2003; replaced by lookalike..

Is Kim Jong Il dead? Yes, North Korea’s “Dear Leader” is no more, having passed away in the fall of 2003, writes Waseda University professor Toshimitsu Shigemura in Shukan Gendai (Aug 23-30).

A one-time Mainichi Shimbun journalist posted in Seoul, Shigemura is introduced by the magazine as a leading authority on the Korean Peninsula. His latest book, released this month, is titled “The True Character of Kim Jong Il.”

If true, the implications are potentially vast. Among them: former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s summit partner during one or both of his landmark visits to Pyongyang in 2002 and 2004 was not Kim himself but a dummy—the stand-in Shigemura claims has been fooling the world for at least five years.

A dictator having one or multiple doubles is a familiar notion since Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was shown to have deployed them. But Saddam was alive at the time. Kim, in Shigemura’s scenario, was not manipulating a look-alike; he was replaced by one.

Of course it’s fantastic—but in North Korea, says Shigemura, fantasy and reality are not mutually exclusive. “Japanese common sense cannot take the measure of North Korea’s uniqueness,” he writes. “For example: Kim came to Tokyo six times in the 1980s.”

Then as now, North Korea and Japan had no diplomatic ties. Kim, then heir to the throne under his father, “Great Leader” Kim Il Sung, apparently traveled incognito by ship. His purpose: to take in the magic shows staged by magician Hikita Tenko at the upscale Cordon Bleu show pub in Akasaka.

Shigemura cites as sources (without naming them) several people close to Kim’s family. He hears from them that Kim’s diabetes took a turn for the worse early in 2000. From then until his supposed death three and a half years later he was confined to a wheelchair.

Was the flurry of diplomatic activity in which the world saw Kim engaged during those years mere sleight of hand?  The “hermit kingdom” seemed all of a sudden to grow remarkably outgoing. In June 2000 Kim hosted the historic summit with South Korean President Kim Dae Jung.  The following month, he received Russian President Vladimir Putin. In October his guest was U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. In January 2001 he visited China; in August, Russia. In September 2002 there occurred the first summit with Koizumi, culminating in Kim’s admission, after decades of denial from Pyongyang, that North Korean agents had kidnapped Japanese nationals.  August 2003 saw the launch of the Six Party talks aimed at North Korea’s nuclear disarmament.

“Then suddenly,” writes Shigemura in Shukan Gendai, “the pace slows.”
The second Kim-Koizumi summit, in 2004, lasted all of 90 minutes. Scheduled meetings with other foreign dignitaries were abruptly canceled. Kim’s retreat from the public eye was almost total. State television in October 2003 showed him touring a collective farm, but mention of the date of the visit was conspicuously absent.

Kim’s family, meanwhile, was in a state of upheaval. His wife died—of breast cancer, said official reports; assassinated, according to persistent rumors. His favorite sister, a high-ranking Communist Party official, suddenly moved to Paris. Her husband lost his post. Clearly something was afoot.

In the spring of 2006, says Shigemura, American spy satellites succeeded in photographing Kim. An analysis of the photographs led to an astonishing conclusion: Kim had grown 2.5 cm!

“Recently,” Shigemura proceeds, “someone who was in contact with a Kim family member told me he heard the family member say, ‘There’s been a promise not to decide on Kim’s successor so long as the current shogun is alive.’”
“‘Shogun’ was Kim’s nickname,” Shigemura explains “If Kim were alive, the family member would simply have said, ‘the shogun’—not ‘the current shogun.’ The stress on ‘current’ seems to suggest that the person in question is someone other than Kim Jong Il.”

Shukan Gendai asks a government official who helped plan Koizumi’s Pyongyang visits what he thinks of all this. His reply:
“Rumors of a dummy Kim began circulating after the summit. Some of us said we should have Kim’s voice prints analyzed. But if we did that and proved the prime minister had been conferring with a double, it could have destroyed the Koizumi administration. So we didn’t proceed.”

But (unfortunately) in the reality...

..the "Dear Leader" is..

 ..still "alive"!!

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1.) Jeong Gap-deuk, the President of the Korean Metal Workers’ Union (KMWU), was arrested last Wednesday (8.20) in Pocheon (Gyeonggi-do), today's JoongAng Ilbo reported. Since 7.24 he "joined" the S.K. government's "most wanted" list of KCTU leaders (*)...

"Jeong had been wanted by police on charges of illegally interfering with businesses by leading a general strike against the government’s resumption of beef imports from the United States and plans to privatize aspects of the public sector.", the bourgeois JoongAng Ilbo wrote.

In front of KCTU's HQ: Cops are searching for the "most wanted" activists..

2.) Also last Wednesday KCTU issued a press release denouncing the ongoing repression against its leadership.

 
The statement referred to the fact that the security authorities removed the suspension banners calling for the resignation of the LMB gov't, defence of vital labour/civil rights and the dismissal of the chief of the Nat'l Police Agency from the KCTU building by mobilizing gangsters in behalf of Yeongdeungpo District Office that day.

 
Worse still, the authorities created terror-ridden atmosphere after deploying 10 companies of the riot cops around the KCTU HQ to remove the suspension banners. They committed violence against members of the organization protesting against it and threatened that they would arrest them, it said.

 
The statement said also that the gov't/police have escalated the repression against KCTU day by day as evidenced by the acts of detaining Ms. Jin Young-ok,  (Vice-President of KCTU), for "no reason" and arresting Jeong Gap-deuk (KMWU) , on "absurd charges that he spearheaded a strike"...
    

http://www.nodong.org/metabbs/metabbs.php/post/38622

* Related:

☞ Stop arrests of trade union leaders (LabourStart's urgent action alert)

☞ 금속노조 영등포경찰서 항의방문 (VoP video, 8.22)

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Despite Int'l Protests: The Repression

Against KCTU Goes On!

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* 이주노동자 차별철폐와 인권·노동권 실현을 위한 공동행동 (이하 이주공동행동) 은 올 8월 28일부터 열리는 '한국사회포럼'에서 이주 문제로 부문 토론회를 개최하려고 합니다.
이명박 정부 들어 이주민 전반에 대한 통제 강화와 정책의 후퇴가 노골화되고 있습니다.

이에 이명박 정부의 이주민 정책 전반에 대한 문제점을 비판하고 함께 대응 방안을 찾아가기 위한 취지입니다.

많은 참가바랍니다.

 
"이명박 정부의 이주민 정책 비판"

일시 : 8월 28일(木) 오후 3시 40분
장소 : 경희대 308호
주최 : 이주공동행동

-사회 : 미누 (이주노동자의 방송 대표)
-발제 : 정정훈 (공익변호사그룹 공감 변호사)
-패널 : 박선희 (국인이주·노동운동협의회 집행위원)
          김대권 (이주인권연대 활동가)
          서울경기인천이주노동자노동조합
          케밀리아 디누까 (스리랑카 여성이주활동가)

For more informations about the Korean Social Forum 2008:
http://www.socialforum.or.kr/2008/

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LMB's Public Security Olympics

"President Lee Myung-bak applauds how the public security authorities have captured the gold in the form of bras worn by women they detained at street protests, allegedly to prevent suicide attempts but deemed by many to be hardly necessary for protesters." (Hankyoreh, 8.19)

Background articles:

☞ Women detained by police forced to remove bras.. (Hankyoreh, 8.20)

☞ Protester Ordered to Take Off Bra Before Being Confined (K. Times, 8.18)

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Well, it tooks weeks until the S.K. bourgeois press reported about the hunger strike and sit-in protest of Kiryung Electronics union activists, but finally at least Korea Times today did it (likely only because of the latest dramatic development?!):

70 Days of Hunger Strike for 'Survival'

Sixty-seven days into a hunger strike in a shoddy tent pitched atop a guardhouse

at the gate of her company, Kim So-yeon, 39, the union leader of Kiryung

Electronics, was transferred to a hospital Saturday. Even lying on a hospital bed in

northern Seoul, she refuses to stop her fast, which hit 70 days Wednesday.

Kim So-yeon, right, union leader of Kiryung Electronics, and another union

member Yoo Heung-hee, sit on top of a guardhouse at the gate of the company

during their hunger strike in northern Seoul. After 67 days of the fast demanding

stable employment for temporary workers, they were taken to hospital, Saturday

Another union member Yoo Heung-hee was also hospitalized on the same day.

Their struggle has become a rallying cry for numerous temporary or contract

laborers to gain permanent status at work. Kim and Yoo went to the hospital only

after other laborers and civic groups members persuaded them to do so amid

worries over their deteriorating health due to the hunger strikes.

After receiving basic medical treatment, however, Kim now continues her fast at

the hospital. She says she is continuing it only to survive.

"The issue of temporary workers is not only about employment but also human

rights,'' Kim told The Korea Times. "You cannot easily understand the feeling of

being treated like a disposable item. It's so miserable and painful. It's hard to

describe that feeling.''

Some 10 female unionists started a hunger strike on June 11, setting up a tent

atop the guardhouse, following fruitless sit-ins of more than 1,000 days. Most of

them gave up over health problems, but not Kim and Yoo.

"I climbed up there thinking I would never walk on the ground again unless our

demands were met. Of course, it was a painful experience for women,'' she said.

As they had to live in a tent, they also had to relieve themselves inside the tent.

The unusually hot weather this summer also added to their pain.

Despite their hunger strike lasting 70 days, their cause is drawing little media

attention because of the Beijing Olympics. Their company is also turning a deaf

ear to their demands.

"You can't sleep there when it rains and you can't lie down on the ground when it's

so hot. For women, everything up there was so miserable. But the most difficult

thing was that the company ignored us,'' she said.

Kim has lost nearly 13 kilograms and now down to about 40 kilograms. She is

refusing meals, taking only water, salt and yeast.

Proxy Fight

They did not expect their fight to last this long. Non-permanent workers at Kiryung

formed a union and went on strike in August 2005 for the promotion of their job

status. Their strike laid bare unfair practices at Kiryung and other companies in

Seoul's Guro Industrial Complex, which indirectly hire temporary workers from

outsourcing companies to avoid responsibility. In 2006, a court fined the company

five million won for committing illegal hiring practices.

"If you want to talk about problems with your boss, you'll hear 'We don't need

you' and 'You are fired.' After overtime and overnight work, you will get a text

message saying 'You're fired.' We simply wanted to change these inhuman

practices,'' Kim said in a weak but firm voice.

As the strike continued, the company president sat down at the negotiating table

on June 7. He proposed taking on temporary workers permanently after "a year

of training,'' and the union accepted. The next day, however, mid-level managers

rejected the deal and everything fell apart.

Lee and other union members resorted to an extreme measure ― fast for an

unlimited period unless their demands were met.

The company says, however, that it has no legal responsibility for them since they

are not on the payroll, but simply temporary workers from an affiliate.

The union says employers take advantage of loopholes in the Labor Law that

require employers to promote the status of contract workers after two years of

employment. Most employers, however, simply terminate the contracts just

before their two-year term ends.

Kim's struggle mirrors the situation that all temporary workers face.

"I wish temporary workers wouldn't give in. A wise solution to our problems here

can be the key to solving problems facing other non-permanent workers. I think

the government should also come up with more practical steps to help resolve

this impasse,'' she said. "Until then, I will continue to fight.''

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/08/117_29690.html

Already on Monday the "left-liberal" Hankyoreh published following short report:

Kiryung Electronics strike

Kim So-yeon, who is the leader of the Kiryung Electronics’ union and has been on a hunger strike for the past 67 days, is carried by a rescue team to a hospital on August 16.

Kim and fellow union member Yoo Heung-hee, who has been having lung problems, both succumbed to union members’ requests that they go to the hospital.

The Kiryung Electronics union has been on strike for over 1,000 days, hoping that the company will convert their status from irregular to regular workers. Despite a deadlock in negotiations with the company, the union plans to continue their efforts with the added participation of civic organizations, the umbrella labor union Korea Confederation of Trade Unions and the Democratic Labor Party.

Related reports:

☞ 김소연·유흥희, 16일 오전 병원으로 (VoP, 8.16, incl. video)

☞ 기륭분회 단식자, 병원으로 이송 (참세상, 6.16)

☞ 기륭분회, 67일간의 단식 (참세상TV)