CINA

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"If you can't get J. Bieber off the Internet, send him to North Korea!"

Young crooner Justin Bieber seems to be the target of an internet joke which aims to send the Canadian "singer" on a tour to North Korea (hopefully forever!!^^).

http://tweeter.faxo.com/Justin_Bieber_My_World_Tour

Visitors to Justin’s My World Tour webpage were asked to vote on the next country they want him to play in and a host of 'fans' chose North Korea as their favourite destination... (HelloMagazine, 7.05)

Today's Guardian (UK): "A viral campaign has proposed sending Justin Bieber on a tour of North Korea. But what can he expect in a country with just one nightclub? And will he return in one piece?" (☞ What if he did tour North Korea?)

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Guide for Human Rights Violation in Crackdown

Your rights in crackdown
- Ask the Immigration Enforcement officers to show their ID cards
- Ask the officers to show the warrant
- Ask the officers to show Detention Order or Urgent Detention Order (Make it sure that your name, reason of detention, location, and time is written on it)
- You have the right to remain silent and the right to consult the lawyer

Give a call(*) if you experience any of the followings in crackdown
- If you are hit, abused, injured, or insulted by the officers, or if you have any other type of human rights violation
- If the officers keep you in their vehicle for too long
- If you are not given any water or meal in the official vehicle
- If you are not allowed to go to the restroom in the official vehicle
- If the police officer abuses you or violates your human rights while asking for your ID card on the street
- If you are receiving medical treatment or compensation for industrial accident, or if you are a patient, pregnant, or an applicant for refugee status
- If you feel insulted during inspection or investigation
- If your application for consultation on back wages, refusal to return deposit, or industrial accident is rejected
- If you do not have any translation or interpretation service during investigation
- If you are asked to sign the document that you do not understand
- If you are not allowed to see a doctor although you are sick
- If you have any other type of unfair treatment

* Please contact:
02-2285-6068 (Migrants' Trade Union)
02-3672-9470 (Seoul Migrant Workers Center)
Nat'l Human Rights Commission: 1331

面临执法人员搜捕时的应急对策

被搜捕者有如下权利
- 你可以向执行中出入境管理所人员（以下简称为执法人员）要求出示其身份证
- 向他要求出示逮捕证。
- 向他要求出示拘禁令或拘禁证。(应得确认好是否记有你的姓名、拘禁理由、拘禁地点和拘禁期等)
- 你可以行使沉默权，也有权找律师为你辩护。

 
拘捕过程中是否出现过如下诸类侵权情况(*)
- 在拘捕过程中是否有过如殴打、谩骂、伤害、侮辱等类侵权（人权）行为？
- 是否有过长时间拘禁在搜捕车辆上？
- 是否有过在搜捕车辆中没有得到过必需的饮料或食品的情况？
- 是否有过在搜捕车辆中，被禁止上卫生间。
- 执法人员在街头上向你要求查看你的身份证的过程中是否行使过粗暴的话语等侵权言行?
- 受产灾治疗或处在得赔过程中者、患者或孕妇以及在难民申请中者被拘禁时。
- 在全身搜索或受审过程中是否出现过令人感到侮辱的情况？
- 有无因拖欠工资、抵押金、产灾等问题申请咨询而被拒的情况？
- 受审时有无未得到过翻译服务的情况？
- 有无尚未晓得其内容的证书等材料上被人强求签名的情况？
- 是否遇到过在患病时给医院拒之门外的情况。
- 另外受到各种不适当待遇的情况。

* 要是遇到上述诸类情况中一项就请给电话： 02-3672-9470, 9472 /联系。
Migrants' Trade Union(移民工会) : 02-2285-6068。
国家人权委员会：（不用区号就直接摁）1331申告即可。

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"Opposition parties and civic groups held a large-scale rally in Seoul on Saturday, stepping up their offensive against the controversial Four-River Restoration Project...

The river plan, a key item on President Lee Myung-bak’s policy agenda, is expected to become the next big thing on the political scene..." Korea Herald wrote y'day.

Today's (conservative/reactionary) JoongAng Ilbo reported the following:

Opposition groups call for vigils all month

An alliance of five opposition parties and civic groups gathered at Seoul Plaza on Saturday night demanding President Lee Myung-bak halt his four rivers restoration project.

The alliance said over 20,000 people, including Democratic Party Chairman Chung Sye-kyun, Democratic Labor Party head Kang Ki-kab, former Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook, South Gyeongsang Governor Kim Du-kwan and South Chungcheong Governor An Hee-jung, participated in the candlelight vigil from 6:30 p.m.

It was the first time in two years that people with candles poured into Seoul Plaza as they did in 2008 to rally against President Lee Myoung-bak’s decision to resume U.S. beef imports.

“We can save a tremendous amount of government money if the four rivers restoration project is halted,” DP head Chung Sye-kyun said. “With that money, we can create jobs to ease youth unemployment and it can also be used to convert temporary workers into regular workers.”

The alliance has designated July as protest month and encouraged participants to join nightly vigils starting at 7:30 p.m. at the Cheonggye Stream.

Police dispatched some 900 police officers in case of violence, but the rally ended peacefully at 10:10 p.m.

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2922706

Related reports by ☞ Korea Herald, ☞ KCTU, ☞ VoP, ☞ OMN...
And here you'll find some nice pics about last Saturday's protest!

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Migrant Workers 'News' (#4)
Two extreme conflicting stories about the present situation of migrant workers in Israel...

Migrant workers entered Israel initially in the 1990s to replace Palestinian construction workers and agricultural workers (banned to enter Israel since the beginning of the "2nd Intifada"). There is no official record, and not even an official estimate, of the number of migrant workers in Israel today. The current unofficial estimate is 190,000, according to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (2009).

TULIP (Trade Unions Linking Israel and Palestine) reported last Friday the following:

Chinese migrant workers sign up to join the union

By all accounts it was an extraordinary scene on the seventh floor of the Histadrut headquarters in Tel Aviv on Wednesday evening.

Hundreds of Chinese construction workers turned up to fill in their forms and join the Israeli union.

Though the forms were in Hebrew, they were given explanatory pages in Chinese.

As one of the more veteran workers put it (speaking with a smattering of Hebrew), “We are here to get strength.”

Many of the workers were accompanied by their employers, who say they have reached the conclusion it would be easier to deal with a single body — the trade union — rather than with lawyers who often take large sums from workers to defend their rights.

The mass sign-up follows the decision several months ago by the Histadrut to begin organizing foreign workers in Israel.

In China, workers are not permitted to join free and independent unions.  The unions that exist there are state-controlled and exist solely to ensure the smooth running of the economy.  The Israeli unions, on the other hand, are independent and frequently clash with both government and employers.

The Histadrut’s move to organize these Chinese workers and potentially many others stands in sharp contrast to unions in some countries which campaign for the expulsion of foreign workers.

http://www.tuliponline.org/?p=1944

The Israeli (bourgeois) Yedioth Ahronoth published last Wednesday the following nasty report:

"I don't care if they call me racist"

Residents fight kindergarten for children of migrant workers

Residents of south Tel Aviv are working to prevent the opening of a kindergarten for the children of migrant workers and refugees in the Kiryat Shalom neighborhood. The move comes after attempts to prevent apartments from being rented to African refugees, as reported by Ynet last week, and brings tension in the southern parts of the city to boiling point.

 
The municipality decided to open a new kindergarten due to the persistent rise in the numbers of children among these populations, especially in the area around the New Central Bus Station. While the authorities are investigating the possibility of building new premises in this area, a process that could take up to two years, a temporary solution is slated for Kiryat Shalom – an area populated by veteran Israeli families.

The municipality clarified that Israelis are also welcome to sign up their children in the new kindergarten.

During a tense meeting at the municipality offices on Wednesday, residents expressed a clear demand: The planned kindergarten must be cancelled.

 
There demand was not met, however, and the residents, including members of parent committees in the area's elementary schools, threatened to hold a demonstration at the kindergarten's gate and physically prevent the children from entering. 

 
City council member Binyamin Babayoff (Shas) who led the campaign against renting apartments to migrant workers, also joined the new campaign against the kindergarten.

 
"The parents' struggle shows that this is not racism of haredim or the religious population, but real distress which secular people also suffer," he said. "We will continue to shout and oppose until a real solution is found to the issue."

 
'Pulling us down'

The head of the action committee against the kindergarten, local resident Tzilla Yitzhak, explained their position.

 
"We are a deprived population, and we don't have our own budget or resources," she said. "We are trying to lift our heads – and now they'll open a kindergarten for an even weaker population? We don't want to become another central bus station where foreign workers wander about everywhere."

 
"As soon as they open a kindergarten for 35 kids, the families will want to come and live near it, then there'll be foreign workers everywhere," she continued. "These people are actually wretched, they don't have work permits, they bring crime and a bad economic situation to the place they come to, which is already suffering from welfare and economic problems."

 
Suzy Cohen, also a resident of the neighborhood, promises they'll fight the kindergarten with all their strength. She adds that as long as there are insufficient kindergartens in Kiryat Shalom for the local children, it is not logical to bring in the children of migrant workers.

 
Cohen also rejects the idea that Israeli children should go to the same kindergarten as these migrant children – "and I don't care if they call me racist," she says. "Our park is full of Sudanese who are looking for a fight, to kill – they've got murderous eyes. They should take them to the north of the city, or to some other city."

 
The municipality responded: "We are concerned with the welfare of all, and do everything we can to cope with the issue of children of migrant workers and refugees and integrate them into the education system. Thus various options are raised to find a solution for these children while taking residents' needs into account.

 
"It must be noted that Tel Aviv-Jaffa is the first public authority to take responsibility for the refugee and migrant worker population, and almost the only one who for a decade has been caring for their welfare and rights, including the integration of some 800 kindergarten-age children in municipal education."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3913394,00.html

Related articles:
☞ Israel may deport kids of foreign workers (GlobalPost, 6.30)

☞ Migrant workers in Israel: A contemporary Form of Slavery (fidh, 2003)

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Today's Hankyoreh published the following report:

Crackdown on migrant workers escalates prior to G20

The government has continued to receive criticism for the violent tactics used and infringements on human rights

MTU offical, center, speaks during a press conference held to launch “Cat’s Eye”, a group to monitor

human rights infringements against migrant workers during crackdowns in S. Korea, June 30.

The government is strengthening its crackdown on unregistered migrant workers, prior to the G20 summit this November, and has invited censure for human rights abuses and excessive crackdowns. In particular, fines that were exempted after a migrant worker unable to pay the fine committed suicide in 2000 have been re-instituted, and migrant workers caught in the crackdown are being fined and deported. Migrant worker groups have protested that the procedure is double punishment in detaining, forcibly fining and then deporting people for being unregistered migrants.

At the National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) in Seoul’s Jung-gu on Wednesday morning, the Joint Committee with Migrants in Korea (JCMK), Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) and Migrants’ Trade Union (MTU) launched “Cat’s Eye,” a group to monitor human rights infringements against migrant workers. They plan to conduct activities to monitor human rights abuses during migrant worker crackdowns, which have suddenly shot up in numbers recently.

During the launching ceremony, they also highlighted the violence used by crackdown teams and the imposition of unreasonable fines.

Mr. G, a migrant worker from the Philippines, was caught by immigration officials at a factory in Incheon early last month. Pointing to the wages in his paycheck account, Incheon immigration officials told him to pay a fine, as he was an unregistered migrant. The immigration office deported Mr. G after taking the fine. Migrant worker groups in Daegu said immigration officials forced migrants to pay fines as they would receive back wages, and they also levy fines by forcefully confiscating bank account books and personal possessions such as gold necklaces.

Lee Young, a senior official of JCMK, said in anticipation of the G20 summit, the government is strengthening its crackdown on unregistered migrants, and human rights abuses are occurring frequently from crackdowns at factories, homes, on the street, subway stations and bus terminals, both day and night. He said with general society stressing results rather than human rights in conjunction with the launch of the Lee Myung-bak administration, these kinds of violent crackdowns have been occurring frequently.

During the launching ceremony, Mr. Yoon of Korean-Chinese nationality, 48, claimed an official at Suwon’s immigration office kicked him in the stomach and beat his face and back with handcuffs.

“Since Mr. Yoon hurt the official during a crackdown, the official beat him in his sides in the interrogation room,” said a Justice Ministry official in response.

In September 2008, the Justice Ministry said it would reduce the number of illegal migrant workers by 10 percent from the 220 thousand recorded at the time by 2012. In fact, according to Korea Immigration Service statistics from the end of last year, the number of staff hired to facilitate crackdowns has continued to increase, from 20,455 in 2007 to 30,831 in 2008 and 31,506 in 2009. The Justice Ministry said it is currently conducting its first crackdown from June 7 to July 6, but it has yet to determine exactly how many individuals it has arrested.

http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/428394.html