No, it probably won’t bring people on to the streets like the US beef import deal, but this has to be the single-most anti-democratic, mind-bogglingly stupid thing the Lee Myung-bak administration has done in its short time in office:
Police arrested a renowned economist for speaking out against capitalism, which is in violation of the National Security Law. Civic groups and academics are criticizing the government for suppressing so-called progressive scholars over false information.
Some are worrying whether these new moves will bring back the “public security” era when police used excessive force against people under the name of “keeping the peace” in the authoritarian era of the 1970s and 1980s.
The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said Wednesday it had arrested Oh Se-cheol, honorary professor at Yonsei University, and seven other Socialist Workers League of Korea members on Tuesday. The eight are now being questioned in Ogin-dong, central Seoul, over whether they have criticized capitalism and praised socialism as well as other acts considered benefiting the enemy ― the North Korea.
The police spokesman said Oh, chairman of the league, and others have released leaflets and other materials denouncing liberal capitalism. The group’s flags were seen at the candlelit protests against U.S. beef imports, he added.
But it’s a free country, you might say. Well, apparently “free” has its limits — GNP spokesman Cha Min-jeong said in a statement today:
The Republic of Korea is a liberal democratic nation.
You have the freedom to think “I like socialism,” but you don’t have the freedom to overthrow the ROK and replace it with socialism.
You don’t have the freedom to meet, form an action plan, make an organization and act to realize the ideology of socialism.
At first, Oh just had thoughts.
But he crossed the line under the protection of a decade of left-wing governments.
He created an organization with the goal of nationalizing businesses and making a soviet.
He partook in the candlelight demonstrations and agitated for violence and the overthrow of the system.
Not only is this statement scary (cracking down on violent agitation is one thing, telling socialists they have no freedom of action is another), it’s also humorously ironic since Cha — like fellow GNP bigshots Kim Mun-soo (currently Gyeonggi-do governor) and former GNP lawmaker Lee Jae-oh — is a former labor activist lefty who was a major figure in the illegal Seoul Labor Movement Alliance of the 1980s and Korea’s first legal “progressive” party, the Minjung Party. In fact, Cha was the editor-in-chief of the party’s labor movement committee newspaper, “The Worker’s Road.” And the chairman of the party’s professor committee was none other than Prof. Oh himself.
It’s a rare moment when I find myself nodding in agreement with Pressian, one of the most stridently left-wing news publications in Korea, but alas, I do today.
I mean, Oh and six other labor activists were arrested on charges of violating the National Security Law for — as far as I can tell — forming a group called the Socialist Workers Alliance and distributing a publication called “The Socialist” printed in order to build a a socialist workers party. Not exactly the Weather Underground.
Perhaps the funniest thing about this fiasco is that Oh and his group are stridently anti-North Korean, accusing the North — and the Chinese and Soviet communists — of pursuing bourgeois nationalization disguised as socialism. In fact, so anti-North Korean they are that according to an official from the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, they couldn’t get along well with unification groups. Frankly, this probably makes them more critical of North Korea than Korea’s leading opposition party — hey, at least they openly criticize the North for something.
Frankly, I could care less about their ideology — one group of commies is as useless as the other, as far as I’m concerned. Basic democratic principles, however, do mean a lot to me, and it seems to me the GNP needs to really ask whether they’re acting in the spirit of liberal democracy here.
On a related note, the police have asked the Korea Communications Commission to erase some 400 pro-North Korean posts on this website. Between August of last year and February of this year, police have asked for the deletion of 1,870 pro-North Korean posts on the Internet.
Almost makes me want to post pro-North Korean material myself…
50 Comments
depressing.
Beyond depressing.
One of the tragedies of modern Korean history has been its lack of moderate leaders and scholars. In most other countries political parties have tended to gravitate towards the middle over the years, but for some reason Koreans remain as attracted to polar, radical parties as they were when the Japanese first began their intervention in 1915. Just look at the yawning ideological gulf between 2MB and Roh. It’s a nevcer-ending circle of destructive partisan bullshit. You’re either a “commie” or you’re a slave-driving capitalist.
ditto.
I hate being reminded of the fact that Southerners and Northerners are cut from the same cloth. I always think of South Korea as being a place where free expression is possible, and encouraged- to the extreme sometimes- but I guess I don’t know as much as I thought I did. This is very sad.
Communism is outlawed in South Korea. They broke the law. So they got arrested. What’s wrong with enforcing the law? If you have a problem with the law, then that’s another story. Maybe the law should be changed. But don’t criticize the enforcement. Frankly, I welcome the move. There are too many North Korean undercover commies in South Korea working to bring down the country. I shed no tears for one of them getting his ass handed to him. It doesn’t make any difference.
I agree with cm. While I disagree with having an ideology outright banned, it is in the books and the law is the law. Justice is blind and it really is in the fault of the leftist parties for not abiding by whats in the books, not the other way around. Germany had/has a ban on Nazism and discussion of Nazism and the UK has severe laws against public slander limiting free speech as well, and in the same vein, the argument that Korea is not being a liberal democracy by abiding by what the laws dictate is rather sophomoric. Now if the state had no way of removing the law, then it isn’t a liberal democracy. But Korea does have a representative process to change/amend/remove this law, so…
tough shit for communists. Try voting for better people next time.
The old line of “those other Communists are actually bourgeois/doing it wrong, etc., but we’ll do it right” is old hat anyway. The Chinese said it about the Russians, the Vietnamese said it about the Chinese, the Khmer Rouge said it about the Vietnamese, and idiot coffee house college students say it about all of the above. The fact is that Communism kills. It is an inherently violent ideology, just like Islam.
Oh absolutely. After all, everyone knows that vague, overbroad pronouncements which might potentially ban just about any form of expressive activity that goes against official government policy, arbitrarily and often politically enforced, is what constitutes ‘the law’ in most countries which we like to consider ‘civilized democracies’.
Jesus, between cm and ghost.yoon, now I know why the GNP is trying to give overseas Koreans the vote…
@5 & @6, you guys completely miss the point: these guys are harmless. The best way to deal with them is to ignore them. One of the reasons there is such sympathy and curiosity about the DPRK in Korea is because so many people know so little about it - and because there has been so many hardcore right-wing governments bludgeon the polity with the National Security Law at the slightest hint of leftist agitation.
It’s been the same story for 40 years. The further right the government of the day in the ROK goes, the less democratic and the harsher and more militant their security measures, the more fragile the ROK becomes, because the greater the agitation from the far left. By jailing petty ideologists, you simply multiply their support base.
#5, 6
Law or not, putting people in jail for speaking their mind is bullshit.
…and probably not acceptable according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (which South Korea has signed a long time ago).
This sort of thoughtless extremism from the alleged right in Korea has been responsible for making socialist and communist reading material so tantalizing because it was “forbidden” thus desirable. Such is exactly what Proffessor Lee In-ho, former ambassador to Russia, said herself. Apparently no one in this current administration has any understanding or insight.
Han-nara is still populated with slow learners.
Complaining about Korean authorities not enforcing the law is common at the Hole, until it’s a law “we” don’t like. I agree with cm and ghost.yoon that the problem is not the enforcement but the law itself. But good luck on working out when praise of socialism or Juche crosses the line into advocating overthrow of the government.
And regarding the other OP about the spy who loved me, this OP is your answer to why the ban on firing squads and other capital punishment in Korea should be made permanent.
#6 and 7, you guys are fucking nuts.
I’m thinking if Prof. Oh got away with this kinda shit under Messrs. Park and Chun, then the current administration shouldn’t have that much of an issue with it.
(Rare) Kudos to The Korea Times for chucking the spy thing into the last paragraph, where it belongs, in the face of this academic being shut down for doing what academic types do.
I put to you this: The candle nutters had a go at bringing down Lee Myung Bak and didn’t win. Perhaps the thinkers - like Profs. Oh and Han, and the monks - might have more success?
it is in the books and the law is the law
I hate reading sanctimonious shiate like this; the implication is that the speaker has never violated any law and is as pure as the driven snow. Get over yourself.
As long as bookstores around Korea are openly selling books that can later send people to jail (Marx, etc.), the National Security law is bullshit. If you are going to ban something, ban it. Selective enforcement to such an extreme extent is a banana republic way of governing.
What law are you talking about?
Everyone breaks the law in Korea. This is a part of the way of life there.
And whether you end up in jail or not depends on many things, law being the very last one.
This is a blatant abuse of human rights no matter how you look at it. North Korea used to be rich in the 60’s and the 70’s. Modern South Korea is what it is BECAUSE of those human rights that are being disregarded in this case. By this the country is getting closer to North Korea than before.
Mr. Oh is the last one to be called a “leftist”. Please, read his history.
If they so much want to put some leftist bastard in jail why not ex-president Roh? He broke the law so many times. Or why not some Hyundai Asan CEO?
What the hell is wrong with 2MB doing this witch-hunt?
I think the National Security Law is still needed in South Korea. As a front-line state facing an enemy determined to undermine its government, the ROK needs something beefier than the typical anti-spying laws that most countries have in order to go after spy rings and Pyongyang front groups.
However, it clearly needs to be amended so that government officials can’t just arbitrarily lock up folks with weird ways of thinking.
As emotionally unsatisfying as it is, I see this as more of a line-drawing exercise than a moral crusade.
10
I might be overseas, but I still have a vote. The joys of being a Korean citizen I suppose. That and forced conscription.
To 18,19,20
You’re right. A lot of people break the laws and common folk people break laws that they didn’t even know existed on a daily basis.
Yet you criticize that enforcement of one law, especially this one, is silly in light of all other laws being broken by whoever wherever.
By that argument, we shouldn’t enforce any laws that we see as an intrusion into our individual rights. By that logic, we can’t really enforce any laws in the public sphere. If we as individuals get to decide what laws apply to us, then there is no purpose of any public law.
The problem with other laws as opposed to this one is enforcement. Many laws are in the books just formally, an idea put there to placate some force in politics that had a stick up their ass. But whether the law is only formal or has substantial backing, it is still regardless a law.
Never said I was some kind of saint who follows the public code to the fullest. I jaywalk and all that shit just like any other person in Korea. But if I get a ticket for jaywalking one day, then shit, I really can’t complain about being ticketed for jaywalking, it is formally not allowed. Just never been enforced.
Do you think the argument, “but the police are not enforcing seat belt laws, you can’t go around giving me a ticket for jaywalking” is going to work in a court of law? This type of argument doesn’t even work when you try to use it as a five year old and saying “but all the other kids were climbing the big oak tree, how come only I get punished for doing so?”
Enforcement is a bitch when it happens to you, but tough shit. The alternative is complete anarchy.
A little late for the heads-up, no? MB has been steadily encroaching on civil rights and freedom for a while now (remember how he dealt with the protesters…), this is just another step.
Like statutes outlawing fortune telling and witchcraft, these are the kind of laws that are meant to fall by the wayside as a country makes its democratic transition.
#24 MB was a softie on the protesters. One reason his poll numbers went down so fast is that conservatives thought he was being weak.
Try marching without a permit and blocking the streets in any city in North America and see how long that will last. Perhaps the cops working (over) the crowd outside the Democratic National Convention could come over and teach their Korean couterparts a thing or two: http://www.rockymountainnews.c.....s-say-had/
“counterparts”
@14, R.Elgin, I’ve been searching for that clip for ages, and I was going to make a point of it just now. Cheers for the link.
Please don’t make us laugh. GW Bush and his administration has done worse in eroding First Amendment rights in America (not to mention literally breaking the law) and yet you consider the awkward qualities of LMB’s administration repressive!?
Stupid maybe since arresting the economist repudiates the notion of of openness in a democracy to debate ideas but we have yet to see any real maleficence on his part.
One thought does occur to me and that is this economist considered such a threat because the administration foresees some sort of economic collapse?
Another step, like when President ROH had Song Du-yul — who wasn’t even a Korean national — arrested, tried and convicted for violating the very same National Security Law in 2004? Or like when he watched as police arrest two activists for — wait for this — downloading the Communist Manifesto in 2003? Likewise, the police practice of demanding pro-Noth Korean posts be deleted and pro-North Korean websites closed or blocked far predates LMB — they did it under so-called progressives like DJ and Roh, too.
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=10774
The Hani 21’s might disagree, but this isn’t another step anywhere — it’s just more of the same bullshit.
Elgin,
Give me one goddamn example of how “first amendment rights” have been eroded. One specific example. Bonus points if it affected you personally.
By the way, does anyone know how that vid can be embedded in a blog?
Don’t believe you can do that in a comment.
Baedol is very young, fellas. Give her some time to become as jaded as we are.
My full recommendation for the video in Elgin’s link. A fascinating lecture from start to finish. I saved it to my own computer last year and I’ve given the file to several friends. Just cuz it’s from Elgin, don’t think it’s some sort of socialist diatribe. It’s a very well-presented political history of Korea’s recent past, and how the country’s politics got to be the way they are. (Baedol, you should watch it, too).
No, I meant in a post on my blog. Youtube has an embed code next to their vids, this one doesn’t. I’m sure there must be a way, but i’m not tech-savvy enough…
Marmot did a post on this last year (the day you downloaded it I believe Linkd :P)
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2007/.....-download/
Oh, in that case, on the WP “write post” page, there should be a button for generic vids. Or try this plugin:
http://wordpress.org/extend/pl.....quicktags/
Oh, and the vid in Elgin’s link DOES have an embed code — just press the 퍼가기 button.
Thanks!
The main reason communism was kept illegal here is so the government could crackdown on the labor movement.
…this isn’t the early 1980s. There are few South Koreans left who’d let themselves be duped by North Korean propaganda.
…Besides, who in their right mind would want to live like a North Korean?
This thread needs more wjk. Yes, work’s been slow this week…
Funniest comment in weeks.
My wife (present not late) was a national policewoman here who infiltrated union protests to spy on communist activities, especially North Korean ties. Her former boss was charged later with torturing suspects and went into hiding, but they finally caught and convicted him just before the statute of limitations ran out. I call her “007.” (For the info of the losers without personal lives of their own, I beat her on Thursdays.
)
I agree with Andy. The law is necessary, especially given what borders to the North and the espionage and propaganda the Norks engage in. That being said, they need to refine the law because the case in question is ridiculous.
R. Elgin, can you name any US Citizens who have had their rights violated under the Patriot Act? It’s not like unruly protesters were never arrested before 2001, such as the 200+ arrested outside the 2000 Democratic National Convention and many others during the protests of the 1960s and 70s.
Ha ha ha! Eat it, LMB! And all your authoritarian cronies. Ha ha ha!
Crap. Meant to link to this:
http://joongangdaily.joins.com.....id=2894295
Yeah, eat it LMB government for attempting to rein in the moonbats |)
Here are the idiots “notlob” is gloating about who are not going to be arrested:
“Established in February, the Socialist Workers League of Korea said it has “a historic mission to overthrow the capitalist system and to realize communism through class struggle.”
To this end, the group argued that the administration, legislature and judiciary should be abolished, and the police and standing military be brought to an end. All companies and financial institutions must be nationalized, the league also argued.”
I’m all for freedom of speech, and these guys are laughable, but given how credulous some Koreans are maybe they should be jailed.
People have the right to be moonbats. The solution to idiocy is information, not jail. Sunlight being the best disinfectant, as they say.
If you put it that way, Notlob, I’m in total agreement. Still, people who openly espouse the overthrow of the government call for some monitoring, which happens in almost every country, and Korea’s NIS has been neutered by Roh and DJ. So what’s the Lee gov’t to do?
I would put them on KBS and let them spew away, then show documentaries on Stalin, Mao, and Kim Il-sung/jong-il. Then I would spray them with disinfectant
It’s worked wonders in North Korea, but perhaps the radiation index needs to be raised a bit?
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