Category: Democracy

September 21, 2013

Democracies don’t shoot their own people for trying to leave

The ROK Army has given its explanation for why its soldiers shot a would-be South-to-North defector, and that explanation is completely unsatisfactory: Asked if the soldiers’ response was excessive, Brigadier General Cho Jong-sul at the briefing said: “It was legitimate. In a combat area like this, anyone who ignores our soldiers’ repeated warnings and tries to run away to North Korea will get shot.” The ministry said Mr. Nam was carrying a South Korean passport, which showed that he had...

Categories Democracy/ROK Military

May 10, 2010

Samsung Tries to Sue Its Way to Mohammunity

Recently, a friend approached me about the idea of writing a column for a South Korean newspaper. I declined on the basis that I’m already overtaxed by the burden of writing this blog, but perhaps I should have added “the defense of personal jurisdiction” as another reason: In his Christmas Day 2009 column for the Korea Times, Michael Breen decided to lampoon such national newsmakers as President Lee Myung-bak and the pop idol Rain. Headlined “What People Got for Christmas,”...

Categories Censorship/Humor/Satire/Korean Law

January 26, 2010

Who Is Still Free Not to Be Muslim?

Let’s begin by dispensing with the moot question of whether I agree with all that Geert Wilders has said. I don’t, and I specifically disagree with statements by Wilders, such as his call for the Koran to be banned, that are themselves incompatible with the freedom of speech Wilders now defends so articulately. But almost by definition, people who become the state’s first targets for censorship have inevitably expressed views that are controversial, even indefensible. Wilders is now facing prosecution...

Categories Censorship/Islam

January 14, 2010

“Chutzpah” in Korean = “막무가내”

North Korea, which is ironically quite fond of accusing South Korea of the “suppression” of its puppets in South Korea, is demanding that South Korea prosecute the activists who’ve resumed showering its countryside with anti-Kim Jong Il leaflets: The chief delegate to inter-Korean military talks was quoted as saying by the Korean Central News Agency that “South Korean organizations, swept by anti-communism, caused a disturbance by flying tens of thousands of leaflets from Paju, Gyeonggi Province on Jan. 1. “South...

Categories Censorship/Democracy/Propaganda/Subversion

December 10, 2009

More on Australia’s Denial of Visas to N. Korean Propaganda Artists

In Australia, five artists from the Mansudae Art Studio were invited to the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in Queensland state to talk about 15 pieces the organizers commissioned for the exhibition, which includes work from more than 100 artists from 25 countries. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith rejected the artists’ applications for an exception to a visa ban on North Korea, part of targeted sanctions imposed in 2006 in response to the country’s steps to develop atomic weapons. Organizers...

Categories "United" Nations/Censorship/Propaganda/Sanctions

October 14, 2009

Interview with Kim Young-il, Executive Director of PSCORE

People for Successful COrean REunification (PSCORE; 성공ì ì¸ 통일을 만들어가는 사람들, aka 성통만사) is a small NGO that works on “democratization, human rights and social issues. [They] hope to bridge the gap between South Korea, North Korea and the international community.” They mostly aim their programs, such as essay contests, a one-on-one tutoring program, a summer English camp, and cultural outings, at students, but they’ve held at least one seminar for the public at large (last Spring). Mark your calendars...

Categories Defectors/Democracy/Human Rights/Reconstruction

August 8, 2009

Henceforth, All Art Must Serve the State

In a world fully possessed of its senses, Lanny Davis would have marked himself indelibly as a national laughingstock by now.  It worries me that as one, the “artistic community” has wheeled from near-unanimous opposition to the state to near-unanimous opposition to any dissent against it.  And now that I mull it some, it may be the very term “artistic community” that scares and confuses me the most: Consider the recent flurry of debate over the Obama “Joker” posters that...

Categories Censorship/Democracy/U.S. Politics

June 23, 2009

The Jackboot Is on the Other Foot

For years, Roh Moo Hyun’s government funded a host of habitually violent left-wing unions and “civic” groups, and we never heard a peep from the Hankyoreh about that outrage against democracy. But that was then: It has been revealed that of the 14.1 billion Won in subsidies for social groups to be provided by the 25 district offices of Seoul City this year, about half, 7 billion won, will go to three major government-initiated community development project groups and 10...

Categories Censorship/Democracy/Korean Politics/Korean Society/Media Criticism

June 14, 2009

Hey DJ, What’s That Big Pink Animal With the Prehensile Trunk? (Updated)

Admittedly, I don’t have high expectations of NPR, but I would expect that even they would at least mention the circumstances surrounding the summit that bought Kim Dae Jung his Nobel Peace Prize.  Instead, NPR lets his grandiose claims go unchallenged: “The Sunshine Policy has been and still is supported by the majority of South Koreans and the whole world,” Kim says, sitting in his living room. “It’s the reason I won the Nobel Peace Prize. People are telling President...

Categories Appeasement/Censorship/Democracy/Media Criticism

June 4, 2009

Categories Censorship/China/Democracy

April 2, 2009

KCNA Stands Up for Press Freedom!

North Korea, which was ranked 172nd out of 173 countries on last year’s survey of world press freedom and which is currently holding two journalists hostage, has lent its moral authority to the oppressed purveyors of the fraudulent P.D. Diary in South Korea, which inspired last year’s violent mad cow demonstrations. The Citizens Federation for Democratic Media of south Korea issued a statement on March 27 denouncing the present “government” and the ruling party for their undisguised moves to put...

Categories Censorship/Media Criticism/Unintended Humor

November 20, 2008

The Safety Dance

In my scrapbook from my Army days in Korea, I still have a leaflet, courtesy of “the protector of our race’s destiny,” declaring that “North and South shall bask together in the glow of General Kim Jong Il’s embrace.”  That leaflet was given to me by a sergeant in my unit, who found it outside Gate 7 of Yongsan Garrison in Seoul found one day after morning PT formation.  Where in the Armistice agreement does it say that only one...

Categories Activism/Censorship/Deprogramming

October 30, 2008

N. Korea Marks Terror De-Listing By Threatening to Turn Seoul into ‘Debris.’

Never mind North Korea’s sponsorship of terrorism.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:  any government that delivers messages like these should be listed as a specially designated terrorist group: “We clarify our stand that should the South Korean puppet authorities continue scattering leaflets and conducting a smear campaign with sheer fabrications, our army will take a resolute practical action as we have already warned,” the official KCNA news agency quoted the military spokesman as  saying. At a...

Categories Censorship/Democracy/Terrorism (NK)

August 27, 2008

Unusual Suspects (1)

Update:  I see Robert had pretty much the same reaction. Maybe all that hand-wringing  about a Lee Myung Bak dictatorship isn’t so exaggerated after all:  Oh Se-cheol, a professor emeritus of Yonsei University and prominent leftwing academic, was arrested on Tuesday on charges of breaching the National Security Law. Oh’s arrest is seen as a start of a government crackdown on leftwing organizations which grew and expanded their realm of activities under the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations. Seoul...

Categories Censorship/The Fifth Column

August 27, 2008

Unusual Suspects (2) (Updated)

In South Korea, where North  Korean agents still infiltrate into the South  to kidnap and occasionally even kill people,  commie conspiracy theories aren’t  always just for John Birchers.  The prosecution has just announced the arrest of a 35 year-old female North Korean “defector,” Won Jeong-Hwa,  for spying for the North Korean regime.  Before coming to the South in 2001, Won served jail time for theft and feared possible execution for committing another crime — stealing tons of zink, which is...

Categories Censorship/Defectors/Refugees/The Fifth Column

August 25, 2008

We apologize again for the fault in this broadcast. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked, have been sacked.

The shepherds of the mad sheep refuse to die quietly. MBC, which retracted its misleading report linking U.S. beef to mad cow disease under court order and apologized to its viewers, is now appealing that order.  So if it’s now beyond  serious dispute that the original report misled viewers with sloppy translations, bad science,  and images of people and cows infected with other diseases, why is MBC now trying to retract its retraction? The MBC labor union has fiercely criticized...

Categories Censorship/Media Criticism/The Fifth Column

August 11, 2008

The Freedom of the State’s Press to Deceive the People Shall Be Abridged

[Updated below] In the wake of a court’s decision ordering a retraction of a distorted, sloppy, and  false  MBC report that triggered massive anti-government protests, Lee Myung Bak is moving to clean house.   A principled approach would be to ask why Korea’s government (or for that matter, ours) is in the business of broadcasting the news anyway and just saw off this vestigial limb.  Instead, Lee is being Lee and conducting a purge. The shakeup culminated on Friday at national...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Censorship/Korean Society/Media Criticism/The Fifth Column

July 31, 2008

Court Orders MBC to Broadcast a Retraction on Mad Cow Report

A Seoul civil court on Thursday found an influential MBC report on U.S. beef health risks “wrong” and ordered the major broadcaster to air a correction, upholding the government’s complaint over the critical coverage.    “PD Notepad should broadcast a correction of its wrong piece on mad cow disease,” Judge Kim Sung-gon of the Seoul Southern District Court said in the verdict. The Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries raised a complaint against the popular MBC current affairs program,...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Censorship/Korean Society/Media Criticism