Yesterday's so-called "People/General Strike" in S. Korea: Here you can watch a documentary, depicting the complete "strike" rally in front of Seoul's City Hall(more about the issue you'll get here tomorrow!!)...
Here you can watch a short English TV report(by Arirang News) about the same event.
Today's so-called "People's/General Strike" in S. Korea: First impressions(more about the issue you'll get tomorrow!!)...
Since last Friday(2.21): A new international solidarity/signature campaign...
JOIN THE CAMPAIGN(for more detailed info, please check out "Act Now!")!!
Related article:
☞ #FreetheKorean15 (TUC, 2.21)
Two days ago Yonhap News reported the following: The government will deal sternly with a militant umbrella union's general strike planned for next week, the labor minister said Wednesday, labeling it "illegal."
The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) has said all of its members will go on strike Tuesday, timed with the first anniversary of the incumbent government, demanding it stop oppressing workers and attempting to privatize public companies(*)...
* Oops~ but KCTU demands(^^) first and foremost: "Park Geun-hye... STEP DOWN!"
..."The government will sternly deal with the illegal strike with no justifiable purpose," Phang Ha-nam said during a press conference at the government complex in this central administrative city of Sejong.
"The principle of no-work-no-pay will be applied to individual unions and unionists taking part in the strike and they will be held responsible for their participation, including receiving disciplinary actions," the minister said.
The government, once again, calls on the union to cancel its planned strike and try to resolve problems through dialogue, he said, adding he is willing to meet with KCTU leaders to help resolve pending issues...
A roof of a gymnasium at a resort in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, collapsed Monday night under the weight of snow, killing 10 people and injuring 105...(JoongAng Ilbo, 2.19)
But "heavy snow" wasn't the main cause! According to the S. Korean (bourgeois)media it was only the secondary cause. The primary cause was - as usual - the well-known fact that capitalism stops at nothing to achieve profit maximization!!
The resort, owned by Kolon Industries Inc.(a corporation already accused for massive labour right violations), is located at the top of Mount Dongdae at an altitude of 500 meters, according to police officials. The heavy snow atop the roof could have caused the collapse, following recent massive snowfalls across the country, officials said, adding that they are not ruling out whether the building was an unauthorized structure that had failed to meet safety standards. The gymnasium, also used as an auditorium, was a pre-engineered building assembled with rigid frames and side walls, the ministry official said. Buildings of this type are usually used for storage purposes...(Yonhap, 2.18)
Concerns have escalated over alleged fraudulent construction of the building and a lack of safety measures. Reports by officials and experts stated that the possibility was high that the building was poorly built in the first place and should have been used as a storage facility, not a gymnasium, judging from the materials it was made from...(K. Herald, 2.18)
Related articles:
☞ Warning Signs Heralded Gyeongju Resort Tragedy (Chosun Ilbo, 2.19)
☞ Safety flaws suspected as cause of building collapse (K. Herald, 2.18)
Yesterday’s MSSC Struggle Report (2004/02/17)
After immigration officers captured Samar two days ago we decided to fight back. So today, as we announced, we’d another protest rally in front of Seoul (Mokdong) Immigration Office and we’d a special reason - beside Samar’s arrest - to demonstrate: we wanted to announce that our prisoners and some MSSC(Myeong-dong Sit-in Struggle Collective) members will go from Tuesday in hunger strike. From MSSC Radika, a woman from Nepal, Gaziman also from Nepal, Mamoon and Masum, both from Bangladesh will make a hunger strike “until 'KB'(Kul Bahadur Yakha), Enamul Haq and Samar are released from detention centers” according to the public statement they made on the rally. Inside the prisons Samar in Yeosu, K.B., Haq and surprisingly(actually it is not a surprise, it is just the fruit of our efforts to get solidarity...) their inmate in their cell, a migrant worker from Mongolia, started yesterday also an unlimited hunger strike.
The rally itself was a strong manifestation of our willingness not to give up our struggle for the labour and human rights of migrant workers in S. Korea...
Because we’d to learn, that behind the opposite police station many immigration officers were hiding, we finished the rally after 45 min and just wanted to take our buses back to Myeong-dong. But the immigration officers had supposed another plan: just they wanted to arrest us, nothing else. So, while we left the rally place to get our buses, waiting just some meters away, about 200 riot cops tried to block us and cleared the way for around 100 immigration officers, drawn together from Seoul, Uijeongbu and Incheon, who started to attack us from left, right and back. They just were trying to catch as many as possible from our group. But because of the strong efforts of our supporters [DLP (민주노동당), KEB Credit Card Union members, Hitech Korea Union members, Ji Min-joo, Yeon Yeong-seok, Norae gongjang members, student solidarity groups like SF and NOHAK etc./ THANX A LOT TO ALL OF YOU!!] our enemies were able to get only one MSSC member: comrade Gupta from Nepal. Partly it was our mistake that they got him and we’ll learn from it. Of course he is now also included in our demand to release all migrant workers activists from detention centers!
PS. Short before the beginning of the protest rally our Secretary for Int'l Solidarity was arrested while he was checking the situation on the spot. Three hours later he was released with the order to leave S. Korea within two weeks, otherwise… (ha, ha~ You can imagine his reaction?!)
MUST SEE(!!): "We're All Samar"(impressive docu video about the short rally and the following "battle" in front of Mokdong Immigration Office)
Ten years ago: Since 3 month dozens of migrant workers and some of their Korean supporters are occupying Myeongdong Cathedral’s compound in downtown Seoul. The following documentary, produced and published by our (deceased)comrade Lee Sang-hyeon(aka "Hong Gil-dong in the Forest"), depicts how comrade Samar got kidnapped by immigration officers(*)...
* ETU-MB report(2004.2.16): Yesterday struggling migrant workers could celebrate exactly three month of Myeong-dong Sit-in Struggle Collective (MSSC) - since Nov 15 last year migrant workers and there Korean supporters are occupying Myeong-dong Cathedrals compound to protest against South Korean government’s policy of manhunt and mass deportation - and Immigration Office wanted to make a special "birthday present".
At noon 12:35 four immigration officers captured Samar Thapa, the chief of ETU-MB’s (Equality Trade Union – Migrants’ Branch) current Emergency Struggle Committee. Samar Thapa just wanted to meet activists from the Philippines when he was attacked and captured by immigration officers by using extreme force to get him in the waiting car. It is to assume that Immigration Office or police bug his telephone, because already the night before Samar Thapa made the appointment with the Philippine activists.
Other activists of MSSC only few minutes from him away had a street propaganda action on the "Philippine Marked" in Hyehwa-dong. They collected signatures against the voluntarily self-deportation the South Korean government demanded from all so-called “illegal” migrant workers. Actually after the meeting with KASAMMAKO (Filipino migrants community) activists Samar Thapa wanted to join the propaganda action...
Of course ETU-MB and MSSC are strong demanding the immediate release of Samar Thapa - the immigration officers directly brought him to Yosu Deportation Prison Center in the south of the Korean Peninsula - but also the release of the other MSSC members, Kul Bahadur Yakha and Enamul Haq, now since more than one month in deportation Prison. KCTU/ETU-MB sees this newest attack as a direct action to smash migrant’s trade union and the whole migrant workers movement.
Directly after the bad news became known the Korean MSSC members, supporters and the international secretary of ETU-MB went to Mokdong Immigration Office to protest against Samar’s abduction. During the rally it came to a short clash between the demonstrators and riot cops, numerous present on the spot.
Last week Korea Times wrote: “Lim (an official at the Residence Control Division of the Justice Ministry) said the Justice Ministry will carry out joint efforts with the National Police Agency to crack down on any illegal aliens in the country starting next month.” According to the International Secretary of ETU-MB it is as a direct warning to the address of the struggling members of MSSC and all migrant workers in South Korea, refusing to leave voluntarily the country.
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