5112개의 게시물을 찾았습니다.
1. Three month ago we wrote: "During the past days the S.Korean media addressed the ongoing/increasing STATE TERROR - related to the next G-20 Summit in Seoul - against 'undesirable minorities', such as migrant workers, poor street vendors, homeless people.."
Now the "ongoing/increasing STATE TERROR" claimed a first fatality, as MTU reported a few hours ago: "Today one Vietnamese migrant worker died in Gwangmyeong city.
When Seoul immigration raided his company in Gasan-dong (Geumcheon-gu, Seoul) on Oct 29, he tried to run away and fell down from 2nd floor to the ground. He was sent to the hospital, but already he was hopeless at that time.
It is a killing by immigration crackdown..."
*****
2. Today's Korea Times published the following f*cking stupid story:
Arrest warrant for drawing rat on G20 promotion poster?
The prosecution sought an arrest warrant for a 40-year-old man who drew a picture of a rat on a G20 Seoul Summit promotion poster but the request was rejected by the court...
According to the Namdaemun Police Station, a 40-year-old university instructor identified only as Park and his friend were apprehended Sunday for drawing a black rat on seven of such posters with spray paint near Lotte Department Stores in central Seoul early in the morning.
The added image to the poster gave people the impression that a huge rat was holding the lantern symbolizing the G20 Summit with the words, “The world is watching Korea.”
The image of a rat is often used to mock President Lee Myung-bak by liberals.
Police asked the prosecution to file arrest warrants for the two for violence and damaging public assets.
However, the Seoul Central District Court rejected the request saying that there was no risk of them fleeing...
Park reportedly said, “I thought the government was making too much of a fuss about a trifling matter. Any G20 country can host the Summit and it is not much of a big deal. I drew a rat because in Korean the pronunciation, ‘Jee (rat in Korean)’ is similar to that of the English letter ‘G.’ It was an act of humor.”
His lawyer, Park Ju-min said, “It seems that the police are trying to make an example out of Park.”
“The G20 is a very important event for the country and tarnishing its promotional poster is not acceptable,” Cho Chang-bae, who filed for the warrant, told a local daily. “We felt that he was trying to defame the global event.”
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2010/11/205_75731.html
Last Sat.(10.30), right after the "Nat'l Mass Rally of Irregular Workers", the "Jeon Tae-il Culture Festival" took place in front of Seoul's City Hall and hundreds of activists and citizens joined/enjoyed the event. Here some impressions(*):
* source: 노동의소리
Since last weekend the S. Korean labor movement is recalling with various events(*) the 40th anniversary of Jeon Tae-il's suicide by burning himself to death at the age of 22 in protest of the poor working conditions in South Korean factories. His death brought attention to the substandard labor conditions and helped the formation of labor union movement in S.K.
Today's key issue in the S.Korean ('left-liberal') daily newspaper Hankyoreh is Jeon Tae-il's struggle for basic labor rights in S.K.:
From 1970 to 2010: an unrelenting
call for improved labor conditions
Chun Tae-il’s self-immolation was a turning point in the movement to recognize the rights of laborors
At around 1:30 p.m. on Nov. 13, 1970, Chun Tae-il(Jeon Tae-il), a young fabric cutter at Seoul’s Pyeonghwa Market, set fire to himself in a call for improvements in labor conditions. He was demanding adherence to the Labor Standards Act and time off on Sundays. “We are not machines,” he cried at the time. For Korean intellectuals, who were caught up in the movement for political democratization under the brutal rule of the military administration, Chun’s self-immolation was a tremendous shock. His act was an arrow directed at the conscience of Korean society.
Jeon was born in 1948 in Daegu, North Gyeongsang Province, to poor dressmaker Chun Sang-su and Lee So-seon. Economic deprivation and hunger were constant companions throughout his life. In 1964, when he was sixteen, he went to Seoul in search of his mother, who had gone to earn money. After scraping out a difficult living selling newspapers and shining shoes, he began work the next year as a sewing machine helper at a sewing factory in Pyounghwa Market by the Cheonggyecheon stream.
A garment factory in Pyeonghwa Market(Seoul's Dongdaemun District) in the 1960's
The harsh working conditions lit a fire in Chun’s heart. Young women in their teens worked fifteen-hour days in a loft where they could not stand up straight, yet it was impossible even to eat on their monthly pay. After their long hours of exhausting work, they developed a variety of eye problems, stomach ailments, and neuralgia. Health examinations were perfunctory. Two or three of the factory’s thirty workers received checkups, but the X-ray machine they stood before did not have any film loaded in it.
The labor laws prescribing eight-hour working days and regular health examinations were little more than scraps of paper. The labor supervisor from the labor office was a figurehead. Chun, who had not completed an elementary school education, began teaching himself about the Labor Standards Act, but he had difficulty reading words that were written in Chinese characters. His plaintive wish that he might have a university student friend by his side would pierce the hearts of countless university students after his death.
Together with other cutters, Chun formed the “Fools’ Association” and “Samdong Friendship Association” to investigate labor conditions. At the same time, he worked to let the labor office and press know the truth and sought methods of improvement. Unable to accomplish this due to the insincere efforts of the labor office and the interference of detectives from the police intelligence department, Chun died through self-immolation on Nov. 13, crying, “Don’t let my death be in vain.”...
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/446549.html
Related report:
☞ Decades later, faces change while poor conditions linger... (Hankyoreh, 11.01)
* For more info (in Korean) please check out:
Cartoon in today's Hankyoreh:
Weapons evolved, injustice remains
In the foreground, a key union member of KEC, a maker of mobile phone parts, attempts self-immolation, resisting a surprise arrest by the police in a KEC factory.
Behind the KEC building, a riot police officer uses a club to beat a Ssangyong Union member occupying a factory in protest against a mass dismissal plan by Ssangyong management for selling the company.
A tenant living and struggling against eviction in a Yongsan redevelopment area becomes engulfed in flames on a makeshift watchtower that caught fire during a raid involving scores of riot police officers.
Beside them stand heavily armored riot police armed with sound cannons, tasers, water cannons and shields.
Late laborer Chun Tae-il who died from self-immolation in protest of inhumane labor conditions, looks on, saying, “Though 40 years have passed... the only thing that has improved is the riot police weaponry.”
The KEC union member who attempted self-immolation was taken to the hospital and suffered third-degree burns to his face, chest and right hand. Some 170 union members went on strike following the rupture of negotiations with the management, and occupied the Gumi factory for eleven days.
Despite the ongoing - and ahead of the G20 Summit (Nov. 11~12 in Seoul) partly increasing - repression against trade union/strike activities(*) only a small number, according to KCTU 4000 workers, followed a call for the "National Mass Protest Day" of irregular workers, held y'day afternoon/evening in downtown Seoul:
Related reports:
☞ 서울광장서 전국비정규노동자대회 열려 (NewsCham, 10.30)
☞ 비정규직철폐 전국노동자대회...2부 전태일 40주기 기념문화제 (KCTU, 10.30)
☞ "공정사회 원한다면 전태일을 기억하라" (OMN, 10.30)
☞ 전태일 40주기 추모 문화제...공연 및 부대행사 마련 (VoP, 10.30)
* Today's Yonhap reported about a current disturbing example the following:
A branch leader of the Korean Metal Workers' Union (KMWU) is in critical condition after setting himself on fire to protest against the police's attempt to arrest him amid a sit-in strike at the Korea Electronics (KEC) factory, police said Sunday.
Kim Jun-il, a KEC employee and the KMWU branch chief of Gumi, 261 kilometers southeast of Seoul, poured inflammables onto his body Saturday night when police officials stormed into the factory to arrest him with a warrant soon after the union and KEC management failed to narrow differences over the new union payment system.
□ 일시 : 2010년 10월 30일(토) 오후 5시
□ 장소 : 서울광장
비정규노동자 노동기본권 쟁취! 비정규 노동열사 정신계승, 비정규직 철폐!
전국노동자대회 (약칭 : 비정규직 철폐! 전국노동자대회)
□ 주요 내용
(1) 3대 목표
- 비정규 노동자 노동기본권 쟁취
- 전 노동계급의 단결과 연대 실현
- 비정규 열사정신 계승
(2) 6대 요구
- 간접고용철폐, 파견법 폐기! 불법파견 정규직화
- 직업안정법 개악 저지! 간접고용노동자 원청사용자 책임 인정
- 비정규직법 폐기 및 사용사유 제한 도입
- 특수고용노동자 노동기본권 보장, 산재 전면 적용
- 이주노동자 노동허가제(노동비자) 도입, 강제단속 반대
- 최저임금법 개악저지 및 최저임금 현실화
Last week's 'top story' in the int'l media...
...commented in Israel (via Yedioth Ahronoth, 10.24):
Finally, those hypocritical, self-righteous Americans are screwed. As always, the greatest joy in Israel is the one over someone else’s downfall, and now it’s the turn of the Americans – the ones who have been preaching to us for decades. This time, we’ll show them who’s right.
The tens of thousands of documents exposed by Wikileaks portray an awful picture of a brutal American thug: In the morning, he rapes a few Iraqi women for his pleasure, by noon he kills dozens of civilians, and what happens in the evening? He eats their livers or raw flesh?
As of yesterday, and for some days to come, America is under attack. It’s being blasted from every direction. This is the same America that was aiming to teach us a lesson; the same America that failed to understand (and will continue to fail) that war does not work in line with the 'noble vision of our Biblical prophets'...
Related stuff:
☞ Iraq War Logs 2004-2009 (Spiegel)
☞ The Secret Iraq Files (al-Jazeera)
☞ Iraq: The War Logs (Guardian)
The (South)Korean People’s G20 Response Action, "...a coalition of labour, social movement, and civil society organisations in South Korea, whom have come together to protest the Nov. 11-12 G20 Summit in Seoul and seek people-centered alternatives to neoliberal capitalism"(*), reported y'day the following:
From October 22 to 23, G20 financial ministers and central bank governors met in the ancient capital of Korea, Gyeongju, ahead of the up-coming G20 Summit. In the evening of the 22nd, delegates were taken to the famous Anapji River for a feast and celebration. Residents and everyday visitors were excluded from the popular area while the elite group partied. By the end of the meeting on October 23, the G20 delegates were claiming a victory in having staved off a currency war among themselves and agreed to measures to reform and strengthen the IMF, including doubling the quotas that determine the amount of money each member country has to contribute.
The G20 claims its is acting to shoring up global economic recovery. Korean people are not fooled however. They not that G20 has no intensions of truly reining finance capital, which is responsible for the economic crisis, or stopping the neoliberal polices that have created poverty and inequality around the world. They know that G20 countries are implementing severe austerity measures, the goal of which is to make common people pay for the economic crisis created by capital. They are aware that the G20 seeks to protect the existing world economic order, which profits corporations and a few powerful nations. This is why they did not let the meeting go by without expressing their displeasure. On Oct. 22, workers, students, activists and ordinary people rallied in front of Gyeongju station to condemn the G20’s attempts to act as the board of directors of the world economy in the interest of the rich. Some protesters came from as far a way as Seoul to participate in the protest.
Workers from the nearby Balaeo Jeonjang Systems Korea Co. lined the perimeter of the rally holding signs that condemned Balaeo management for illegal layoffs and other acts of labour repression being used in retaliation against union members at the factory. The workers’ troubles began in February of this year, when the company began outsourcing measures in violation of an agreement it had reached with the Korean Metal Workers Union Baleao Chapter that all workers would be directly employed and have regular, secure jobs. When the union protested the outsourcing with a work slowdown, the management retaliated with layoffs and other disciplinary actions against those who had participated in the job action.
In his speech, which opened the day’s protest, KCTU Vice President Jeong Hui-seong explained the connection between the workers at Balaeo Jeongjang Systems and others like them and the G20. “G20 members, like the South Korea, are not embarrassed about repressing labour rights. They see labour flexibilisation and attacks on workers as a means to overcoming the economic crisis,” he commented. “We have to recognise that our struggle against the G20 is the same as the one taking place on shop floor,” he concluded. He also asked those gathered before him to prepare for mass protests on November 11, the day G20 Summit begins in Seoul.
Kim Eo-jin, Co-Chair of the Korean People’s G20 Response Action, exposed the truth about G20 efforts to stave off a currency war between member nations. “They say these measures are about harmonious coexistence,” she stated, “but the coexistence they want is not the one we want. We want a coexistence that includes equality and respect for common people’s and workers rights, not one that means inequality and poverty.” Like other speakers, she reminded rally participants to be prepared for November 11.
The program for the day included many other speeches, including those made by representatives of the Korean Democratic Labour Party and the Korean Clerical and Financial Workers Union. A performance was also given by the progressive singing group “Good Friends”. At the end of the rally a protest statement including the following slogans and demands was read out loud:
· We condemn the G20 for trying to make common people pay for the economic crisis!
· Stop austerity measures, which victimize workers and common people!
· Stop using the G20 as an excuse for repressing human and labour rights!
Participants showed their support for these demands by committing to struggle up until, on and after November 11, their fists raised in the air.
http://en.putpeoplefirst.kr/101822
* More info you can check out here!
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