KOREA-HUMAN RIGHTS: Activists Pressure Seoul to Repeal Security Law

By Haider Rizvi Reprint | | Print |

Haider Rizvi

WASHINGTON, Aug 14 1996 (IPS) - Concerned about continued arrests and torture of opposition activists in South Korea, human rights and civil rights advocacy groups here are urging Seoul to repeal its national security law.

Since return to democracy a decade ago, hundreds of students and workers have been arrested in South Korea, under the National Security Law, for peaceful activities in support of reunification with the neighbouring North Korea.

Korea was divided into two separate political entities — the communist North and the U.S.-backed South — soon after its liberation from the Japanese colonial rule in 1945. Yet despite partition, a number of political groups in South Korea continue to cherish the dream of unification.

The 48-year-old National Security Law was originally implemented by the Japanese to silence the voices of revolt from within Korea. After the Japanese left, the U.S.-backed South Korean leaders kept it intact in order to deal with perceived threats from the communist North.

The law prohibits such activities as forming an “anti-state” organisation and the “encouragement of such organisation.” But critics say it is being widely used as a weapon to curb anti- government parties and groups.

In 1961, the U.S.-backed military dictator Park Chung Hee amended strengthened the law, placing a ban on all forms of communication with North Koreans, including viewing art work, manuscripts, films, and travel.

The law today still includes these anti-communist amendments, which make it an act of treason to read or possess not only the works of Karl Marx but also those of such world-famous writers as Erich Fromm, George Lucas, Antonio Gramsci, and Franz Fanon.

More than 100,000 people, including some members of parliament, have been imprisoned since the law was first enacted. And, according to human rights activists, 300 South Koreans are still languishing in jail, many serving sentences of 20 years or longer.

The South Korean government justifies its use of the National Security Law by arguing that although the United States and the former Soviet Union have ended the Cold War, threats from North Korea are still far from over.

But critics disagree.

“It is hard to understand why peaceful activities (for unification) are banned when South Korean businessmen are free to visit North Korea,” says John Cavanagh, co-director of the Institute of Policy Studies, a progressive think-tank here that is critical of U.S. foreign policy.

“The South Korean Government is following double standards,” he charges.

Critics say while thousands of pro-unification activists were tortured and jailed under South Korea’s former military dictators, their plight is no different today under the democratically elected government of President Kim Young Sam.

During the past three months, more than 100 students have been arrested on charges of violations of the law. Human rights groups say most of the students arrested were involved in peaceful political activitie.KH7ïù.V,.KRKRRRV..ZK+VVVR