Free Speech Watch

Yoduk Story’s web site is still down. [Update: Brendan Brown reports no problems accessing the site from Korea, but I’m still not getting in from the U.S. Odd.]

Meanwhile, pro-North Korean professor Kang Jeong-Koo (Remember him? He called the North Korean invasion of June 1950 a “War for Reunification” and General MacArthur a “war criminal”) has been suspended from giving lectures, not for reasons related to academic standards–the man teaches things that are demonstrably false–but because his views embarrassed the university. Kang was previously indicted under the National Security Law, something I’ve criticized quite bitterly. Whatever you think of Kang’s views, the Korean Constitution allows him to say them (although not necessarily from the front of a classroom). Thanks to that indictment, Kang and his asinine ideas enjoyed a brief moment of political martyrdom and fame.

I realize that Americans are not the final arbiter of democratic principle, but how could we have failed–after sixty years in Korea–to plant the philosophy by which opposing views are debated, and perhaps exposed as false, but tolerated by the state?

Update: The Chosun Ilbo reports:

The university said the decision was based on private school regulations that allow them to bar those charged in a criminal case from teaching. But Kang retains his professorship and can return to teaching if he is cleared in court.

The decision was accompanied by ugly scenes outside the school’s main building, where the board was meeting, as students who turned up to support Kang clashed with conservative demonstrators and engaged them in a pitched battle that lasted for some 10 minutes.

Sheesh. No word on whether any of the radicals or those they fought with were arrested, but the campus is a traditional no-go area for the police. Presuming that pattern still holds, we have the, umm, fascinating contrast of peaceful (but repugnant) speech censored by law, but not challenged with facts, while violent expression goes unpunished. Again.

Update 2:

Conservative activists demanding Mr. Kang be punished and students defending the professor fought for about 30 minutes prior to the board meeting, until university staff intervened to stop the brawl.

A pox on them all. Everyone claims to be fighting for freedom, but few seem capable of even defining it.