The government can’t seem to catch a break with English-to-Korean translations. First we got the supposed “translation errors” in PD Notebook’s infamous mad cow show last April.*
Now it appears that some of the friendly folks at the Korean branch of Amnesty International have “accidentally” mistranslated sections of the AI report on the anti-American beef protests (JoongAng):
“We have found a number of differences between the English press release distributed during Amnesty International inspector Norma Kang Muico’s press conference on Friday and its Korean version. Mistranslations were all against the police and we demanded an explanation about whether they were made by mistake or on purpose,” said Kim Byung-hwa, a senior police officer in charge of the Foreign Affairs Bureau at the National Police Agency.
The local branch of AI apologized… kind of:
In a press release issued last night, Amnesty International’s South Korea Section admitted mistranslating “riot police sought to control surging crowds” as “riot police charged at protesters” and made an apology. But Park Seung-ho, manager of the group, said, “Other parts questioned by the police are not seen as mistranslation if you read them in the general context of the report.”
In otherwords, sections of the Korean translation are fake but accurate.
I can feel the pain of the local AI folks. They must have been extremely frustrated with how mild the AI report on the protests turned out. With the mad cow crew now reduced to a few hundred people hassling commuters, they probably had hoped for a scathing report to help drum up business for the protests. As it stands, I guess we will have to wait for the Bush visit for protests to pick up again.
*That screw-up hit home since my lovely and talented wife got her translation certification through the KBS academy. Now she wishes she had gone to SBS.
13 Comments
Surprise! Surprise!
These “mistranslations” seem to keep working in favor of the lying lefty nuts.
Funny how that is!
Did the AI report include the more than 400 riot police injured by protesters and how the protesters used iron pipes, slingshots, and other objects on the police? Or their attack on Koreana Hotel employees and destruction of property? I’m not going to bother reading it since I’m not into fantasy.
This sounds like a new vogue.
Perhaps North Korea will blame a 17-year-old woman translator for shooting Pak Wang-ja in the back as well.
Yeah, sure, I could believe that.
As can be expected from a progressive Korean newspaper, Hankyoreh has its human rights preferences in good order. Norma Kang Muico’s probe on police actions against beef demonstrations has been given extensive coverage, but for some strange reason, Muico’s earlier visit in February 2006 went unnoticed for our “One Nation” newspaper even though she was on a very national business then, giving a presentation Vulnerability of North Korean Children to Exploitation and Slavery-like Practices in China and the DPRK in the 2006 Asia Human Rights Forum. See her interview in English in Daily NK, and the presentation published in Life & Human Rights in North Korea, vol 39.
Honestly, why would anyone rely on faulty translations when you can get to the bottom of the truth from none other than North Korea’s KCNA, which reported in its English edition on June 3, Juche 97 [2008] the following:
“Lee Myung Bak Group’s Human Rights Abuses Denounced”
Pyongyang, June 2 (KCNA) — Amnesty International in a recent annual report denounced the Lee Myung Bak group for perpetrating such human rights abuses as brutally cracking down upon south Korean people’s struggle against the opening of south Korean markets to American beef, according to CBS of south Korea on May 28.
Amnesty International accused the south Korean authorities of largely abridging the “freedom of expression including assembly and demonstration.”
It is part of human rights abuses for the police to take legal actions against the participants of the candlelight rallies now under way across south Korea everyday in protest against the import of American beef by branding them as “illegal,” it noted.
Let me add that I am pleased to see the DPRK finally giving credit to Amnesty International’s generally accurate analysis and reporting of human rights violations, whether it be in the US imperialist and splitterist puppet Lee Myung Bak oppressed half of the peninsula, or elsewhere in the decadent non-Juche enlightened world.
For what it’s worth…why not writing to AI directly and give them an honest assessment. It takes five whole minutes to write. Maybe if enough people share their opinions, they may look a little deeper into this issue, especially with the overt hooliganism that took place near the end that pretty much turned everybody off.
“Did the AI report include the more than 400 riot police injured by protesters and how the protesters used iron pipes, slingshots, and other objects on the police?”
No. According to the Amnesty International, this was not about investigating the abuses against the police, but it was about investigating the police for its abuse.
I think the best thing the police can do is to file their own human rights abuses complaints against the protesters and the government for abusing the police.
But the resulting report from Amnesty International was all too predictable.
To Andy Jackson,
It’s all right to write your thoughts on the basis of a fact. However, it’s totally upset to read your cynical say. Do you know who the originator of the made-up translations to satisfy the selfish desires are?
You can feel the pain of the local AI folks? Even though there’s a little fault for mistranslation, you should know it’s just the tip of the iceberg compared to the brutalities the conservative press in S. Korea have committed. Futhermore, you think our citizens protesting against the U.S. beef have a lot of problems. You may seem to respect Bush whom I consider an axis of evil. Don’t you know what Bush has done against the underdog of the world? If so, begin by seeing the documentary The War On Democracy.
If I give you a piece of advice, you’d better say you thought after recognizing the reality of Korea, not talking too freely.
Yes, you big, big cynical Korean reality non-recognizing meanie.
For shame, Andy. I mean, don’t you realize only lefties can talk freely? And, as in the case of AI and MBC, apparently, translate freely, too
Wow, what a great humor! You also have excellent skills to avoid the true nature of the problems with the press and the U.S beef. In fact I am wondering who you as a Seoul magazine are like reading the magazine sometimes. I’m often to drop by here to see your another skills
Ah, yes, the “true nature” of the problems with the press and the US beef. Of, at least, the “true nature” as told by the Hankyoreh Shinmun, OhMyNews, etc.
Thanks for reading my magazine, though.
Maybe your great kidding makes me write the words wrong. Correction ; A SEOUL MAGAZINZE → A SEOUL MAGAZINE EDITOR. Just sorry!