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Category: Korean Law

July 25, 2006

Free at Last?

The Koreans have been relatively free for some time now. But if a new bill passes, the American men and women who help secure that freedom may be able to put outrages like these behind them: The bill aims to prevent discrimination in all public and private sectors including employment and education. Discrimination would be defined based on 20 criteria, including gender, physical disability, religion, age, nationality, race, skin color, appearance, pregnancy, ideas and sexual preferences. Under the bill, indirect...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/Korean Society/U.S. & Korea
July 13, 2006

The FTA Has Turned Ugly

An anti-Free Trade Agreement protest of 25,000 has clogged downtown Seoul, and on that day, it wasn’t safe to look “American” on the streets, not even for the Swiss. A Swiss man and two friends were set upon by a mob of angry protestors who apparently mistook them for Americans on Wednesday. The group of 10, who were taking part in a Gwangwhamun rally to protest against an FTA between Korea and the U.S., approached the man and his friends...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/Korean Society/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea
June 10, 2006

Minister Lee, Call Your Lawyer!

I wonder if the UniFiction Ministry’s Kaesong brain trust — perhaps the same great minds that thought they could fill Wal-Mart shelves with Kaesong products — ever stumbled across these articles of the Republic of Korea Constitution: Article 32 (1) All citizens shall have the right to work. The State shall endeavor to promote the employment of workers and to guarantee optimum wages through social and economic means and shall enforce a minimum wage system under the conditions as prescribed...

Categories Appeasement/Human Rights/Human Trafficking/Korean Law/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea
May 21, 2006

The Battle of the Hump, Part 4: The Fiaola Ricefield War

The lastest example of the Washington Post’s awful Korea coverage is certain to leave you less informed than before you read it. Anthony Faiola manages to distort the Battle of Camp Humphreys into a conflict between peaceful, bucolic peasants and Uncle Sam’s evil puppet. Faiola apparently found one of the few local residents in attendance — there are just 70 of them among thousands — a sympathetic-sounding 90 year-old woman. It makes a better story to tell it this way...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/Korean Politics/Korean Society/Media Criticism/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
May 20, 2006

Park Geun-Hye Stabbed

An assailant slashed the neck of South Korean presidential candidate Park Geun-Hye with a pencil knife at a campaign event in Seoul today, where she was at a political event with opposition mayoral candidate Oh Se-Hoon. The cut was 11 centimenters long and 2-3 centimeters deep. Word is, Ms. Park will be OK. The assailant appears to be a Korean man in his 40’s or 50’s. Park very recently resigned as head of the opposition Grand National Party to start...

Categories Korean Law/Korean Politics/Korean Society
May 17, 2006

The UniFiction Church Choir

Progress at Last! The last seven years of the Sunshine policy have finally secured a legacy Roh can campaign on. Goodbye “sea of fire,” hello, “deluge of fire!” I’d like to see those neocon skeptics deny that “deluge” beats “sea” any day of the week! This from the lovable North Korean site “Within Our Race” (a rough translation). ================ Who Stopped My Peace Train? My money is on this not being the last obstacle that bars the path of Kim...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Blogs & Blogging/China/China & Korea/Diplomacy/Europe/Human Rights/Humor/Satire/Japan/Japan & Korea/Korean Education/Korean Law/Korean Politics/Korean Society/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Unintended Humor/WTF?
May 14, 2006

Links of Interest

Richardson has already linked it, but I want to add is that this one could be very, very important to what happens in North Korea. The United States is considering economic sanctions on Chinese banks which have business transactions with North Korean companies allegedly implicated in the development or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), a news report said Sunday. ================= Rep. Henry Hyde, Chairman of the House International Relations Committee, has a message for President Junichiro Koizumi. Hyde,...

Categories Activism/An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Censorship/China/China & Korea/Defectors/Democracy/Diplomacy/History/Human Rights/Korean History/Korean Law/Korean Politics/News Links/NK Economics/North Korea/Refugees/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/Washington Views/WMD
May 10, 2006

Should Hanchongryon Be Designated a Terrorist Organization?

“Let us eliminate anti-unification pro-war forces which intend to cast fire clouds of a nuclear war on the heads of Koreans. — Hanchongryon Statement before visiting Pyongyang If I’d had any idea that things were this bad on South Korean university campuses, I’d have been paying much closer attention: Seven Korea University students face disciplinary punishment after illegally detaining nine professors for 16 hours. The Yonsei University president is working elsewhere after being driven out of his office some 40...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/Korean Politics/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Law/U.S. Military/Uncategorized
May 9, 2006

Roh Moo Hyun, Imperialist Flunkeyist Lackey!

Remember the good old days when only right-wing regimes would call out the Army to battle protestors or haul North Korean sympathizers before military courts? Chew this one slowly. You owe it to yourself to savor this delectable irony. President Roh Moo-Hyun (of the squishy left) is marshaling the power of the state against the radical unions and students (of the bomb-throwing left), many of whom undoubtedly contributed to this razor-thin election in 2002. It seems so very long ago...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Democracy/Korean Law/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized
May 8, 2006

HRC Update

Arguably, nothing South Korea’s National Human Rights Commission does matters more than documenting and trying to prevent human rights abuses in North Korea. The HRC has often seemed reluctant to do that, and its priorities have sometimes seemed wildly disproportionate to the gravity of the matters it investigates. This time, however, it is actually looking into the impending execution of a North Korean prisoner. It’s a small step in the right direction.

Categories Human Rights/Korean Law
May 7, 2006

The Battle of the Hump, Part 3: Reestablishing the Rule of Law

[Updated below; S. Korean prosecutors are seeking to court-martial civilian demonstrators, and I’m not entirely comfortable with that.] There are some encouraging signs that the government and Korean society are losing patience with violent protests. Violent attacks on U.S. troops in Korea are old news, of course, but now that the red guards have attacked Korean troops (and even the mothers of riot policemen) the soldiers’ parents have had it. Have a look at the ineptitute and weakness of this...

Categories Democracy/Korean Law/Korean Society/U.S. & Korea
May 7, 2006

Links of Note

The Political Pendulum: The Chosun Ilbo thinks that the Korean blogosphere is turning right. Although the report depends on readers’ ideological self-identification, I do see modest signs that in South Korea, the pendulum is swinging away from the far left. The problem for the Korea right continues to be that it has articulated no vision that has appeal for younger voters. In a word, it’s reactionary. ====================== Engaging the People: American cartoonist Ranan Lurie wants to bring “uniting artwork” to...

Categories Appeasement/Blogs & Blogging/Korean Law/Korean Politics/News Links
May 5, 2006

The Battle of the Hump, Part 2

They’re ba …. ack! A day after the Defense Ministry forcefully evacuated protesters from an area in Pyeongtaek slated for the relocation of U.S. military installations, about 2,500 activists staged abrupt demonstrations by cutting through the fences built around the site of the future base. About 2,000 protesters from around the nation broke through the police line to seal off the area from outsiders. They marched three hours to join about 500 other protesters who had been scouting in Daechu...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/Korean Politics/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized/Washington Views
May 3, 2006

Union Thugs Attack Riot Policemen’s Mothers

[Update: More KCTU follies: “We will unite with the workers of the North to fight against the U.S.” Except these workers, I presume.] The 51-year-old mother of a riot policeman is being treated in the hospital for a serious head injury after being pushed to the ground by union demonstrators while she and a group of other parents were monitoring a protest rally in South Jeolla province, police said. The group demanded an apology yesterday from the Korean Confederation of...

Categories Korean Law/Korean Politics/Korean Society
April 30, 2006

USFK Relocation in Trouble

One of the most interesting things I observed during my recent visit to Seoul was the absence of any apparent arrangements to evacuate Yongsan Garrison, in the heart of Seoul. The relocation plan calls for the evacuation of Yongsan by the end of next year, and the movement of all of its facilities to Camp Humphreys, near the shitty city of Pyeongtaek. Yet the only visible changes at Yongsan are improvements — the new bridge connecting Main and South Post,...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
April 30, 2006

Korean Woman Charged in Yongsan Fire

Via the Stars and Stripes. South Korea’s violent, anti-American political subculture found a willing host in the woman, whom the authorities claim to be mentally ill. Although she set the fire to “punish” the United States for its “terrorism,” she ended up burning three Korean workers severely. There were suggestions that the fire had been accidental. At least the Koreans are prosecuting her and asking for hard time, although I doubt that would happen today if this woman were affiliated...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/Korean Politics/Korean Society/U.S. Military
April 29, 2006

Ma Young Ae Update

The Daily NK is offering up some investigative reporting to back up its skepticism about Ms. Ma’s asylum claims. Ms. Ma, a former North Korean counterintel agent who worked in China until her defection in 2000, is petitioning for political asylum in the United States because of alleged South Korean persecution. Read and decide for yourself, but one point in the Daily NK’s favor: threatening people to silence them is persection; offering them fat bribes to keep quiet (even if...

Categories Censorship/Defectors/Korean Law/Refugees/Uncategorized