26개의 게시물을 찾았습니다.
Seoul: Pre-"Mayday" Repression
1. While the central "Mayday"(i.e. the Struggle Day of the Int'l Working Class) rally was planned to be held on Seoul City Hall Plaza only one day before SMPA banned any political gathering there and any other place in the downtown (e.g. Daehak-no, Cheonggye Plaza, Gwanghwamun etc). And KCTU, one of the main orgainizers of the "Mayday", obeyed! So the central rally will be held tomorrow at 3 p.m. in Yeouido's Culture Park (i.e. in the boondocks!!).
2. Already today in the afternoon (KST) about 20 student activists who wanted to support the struggle of the Yongsan residents resisting the eviction (yesterday 100 days ago the Yongsan Massacre took place!) were arrested by the riot cops.
Possibly as a warning against any so-called "illegal" activities around the "Mayday"...
3. This - most likely - means that all tomorrow's "Mayday" activities will be confronted with a massive wave of oppression conducted by thousands of riot cops!
Related:
☞ Police chief warns against illegal protests ahead of large May rallies (Yonhap)
But, despite all the oppression efforts by the MB Administration: celebrate the..
공산주의 만세!
Yesterday's Guardian(UK, 4.28) published following interesting article about recent developments in the Japanese "Communist" Party(日本共産党):
Disgruntled Japanese turn to resurgent communists
Web-savvy Japanese Communist party's message of welfare and jobs lures young voters away from sleazed-mired political mainstream
Faced with an economy in steep decline, rising unemployment and an uncertain future, a growing number of Japanese are shunning the conservative consensus and turning instead to a new brand of cuddly communism.
While the leaders of Japan's two main political parties battle poor opinion poll ratings and accusations of sleaze, the Japanese Communist party (JCP) has seen its fortunes transformed after years of being dismissed as an irrelevant hangover from the cold war.
In the last 16 months membership has soared to more than 410,000 as the revamped party courts younger voters from the working poor. Of the 14,000 people to have joined since the end of 2007, about a quarter are aged under 30, the party says. That contrasts with the ruling Liberal Democratic party (LDP), whose membership has plummeted from 5 million at its peak to about a million today.
By dispensing with ideological rhetoric and focusing on welfare and jobs, the JCP has struck a chord with students, the unemployed and the estimated 10 million Japanese earning less than 2m yen (about £14,000) a year.
Yasuhisa Wakabayashi is typical of the new Japanese communist. The 23-year-old Yokohama factory worker joined the party in January. "Unlike the mainstream parties, the communists aren't interested in seeking donations from major corporations," he said. "They talk about education and welfare and the problems of ordinary people. And they are honest."
The JCP is making its presence felt on the internet. Among its clips is a rousing tirade by the party's affable leader, Kazuo Ishii, against the exploitation of contract workers, which has been viewed more than 100,000 times on YouTube.
The circulation of its official newspaper Akahata (the Red Flag) has risen for eight straight months to 1.6m, although it is still a long way short of its 1980 peak of 3.5m.
The JCP also owes some of its success to a novel published in 1929. Kanikosen (The Crab Ship), a Marxist-inspired account of rebellion, sold over half a million copies last year after it became required reading on restless university campuses.
Despite its resurgence, few believe the party will play a pivotal role in national politics. It has just nine seats in the 480-seat lower house, and is hampered by an electoral system that penalises minor parties.
JCP officials insist they will play no part in a coalition, not even if it means turfing the LDP out of office for only the second time in 54 years. "We would co-operate on individual policies but we wouldn't be part of a coalition," said Kimitoshi Morihara of the party's international bureau. "There is no difference between the LDP and Minshuto [the main opposition party] on the economy, defence or any of the big issues of the day. But we are different."
The JCP is barely recognisable from the party of 30 years ago. Now, dialectic materialism has been replaced by a commitment to "democratic change within the current framework of capitalism".
"The JCP of today is very different," said Go Ito, a professor of politics at Meiji University in Tokyo. "The modern party is pragmatic, which is why it has managed to tap into the dissatisfaction being felt right across Japanese society."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/27/japanese-communist-party-resurgence
Yesterday the migrant workers' rally to prepare the International Struggle Day of the Working Class/"Mayday"(*) took place in downtown Seoul. But alas only The Hankyoreh newspaper - as far as I know - "reported" about it (see below)...
(source of the pics: NewsCham, Hankyoreh)
Migrant workers maintain a picket line for the right to work and against the plan to reduce migrant workers’ minimum wages in Cheonggye Plaza, Seoul, April 26.
The Korea Federation of Small & Medium Business has tried to reduce the minimum wage of migrant workers. Foreign workers feel as though they are being treated unfairly. The South Korean government has deported foreign workers who have not found replacement work within two months of being fired.
Some more pictures from the "event" you can see here and here!
* The "Mayday" in S.K. is just an ordinary workday. So migrant workers have to work on that day - even it's a Friday - until the "bitter end" (between 6 and 8 p.m., at least)!
Related:
☞ 세계노동절 119주년을 맞이하는 한국 이주노동자 선언 (MTU, 4.26)
Last Thursaday(4.21) the "Inter-Korean Meeting" in Gaeseong (Industrial Complex) took place, resp. failed completely..
But - surprisingly - only one day later the S.K. gov't concluded that it could be a beginning of a new, possibly fertile dialogue (according to the S.K. bourgeois but also the 'progressive' media) between the Pyeongyang and Seoul..
Yeah! Exactly!
As following statement by Rodong Shinmun(4.23) is proving:
The Lee group is a junta of the worst fascist gangsters putting the successive military dictators into the shade..
The history and the nation have already sentenced the Lee regime to death penalty..
The ferocious fascist dictator will be forced to stand the trial of history any time for betraying the nation quite contrary to the trend of the times!
- 平和 -
IMC S.K.: "This is the first broadcast (April 21, 2009) of Be the Media, a program of the alternative radio station Media Redevelopment at the Candle Light Media Center, Yongsan, Seoul, South Korea. Be the Media is a radio program project of Korea Indymedia. MC Dope and Giraffe were MCing this first show. Anyone is invited to participate and contribute to the program. The program was broadcast in both Korean and English, switching between the two languages throughout the program":
Last Saturday(4.18) the annual "420 Struggle Day Against the Discrimination of Disabled People" has been celebrated with a powerful demonstration and a colorful culture festival in downtown Seoul. And - as usual(*) - large units of the riot cops were sent to oppress, or at least to disrupt the event:
Source of the pics: Nodong-ui sori (**)
* It seems that no matter whether the "progressives"(^^), like the former Roh Moo-hyun adminstration or the reactionaries of the current MB-gang are "ruling" S.K. - the organized movement of disabled people is always a part of the domestic "axis of evil" (like migrant workers, resisting irregular workers, the activists who are fighting against house demolition/forced eviction etc, etc..), as you can see here:
☞ 420 Struggle Demo 2005
** For more impressions please check out:
☞ [4.18] Opening rally, demo and riot cops
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