SOUTH KOREA: Continuous oppression of the labor movement

URGENT ACTION URGENT ACTION URGENT ACTION URGENT ACTION URGENT ACTION

ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION - URGENT APPEALS PROGRAM

Forwarded Appeal 9 October 2001
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FA-09-2001: KCTU president, Dan Byung-ho, still held in prison

SOUTH KOREA: Continuous oppression of the labor movement
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Dear Friends,

We are forwarding the following appeal by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) in South Korea for your urgent solidarity action.

The KCTU president, Mr. Dan Byung-ho, has been held in prison continuously instead of being released, even though the Korean government had promised that he would be released if he served the remaining two months and four days of a previous sentence. This agreement between the KCTU and the South Korean government was reached with the help of a Catholic mediator.

Please join the campaign to free Dan Byung-ho.

Thank you for your action.

Urgent Appeals Desk
Asian Human Right Commission

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The Campaign to "Free Dan" in Korea and the International Community

Protest letters to the Korean government calling for the release of the KCTU president, Dan Byung-ho, and all imprisoned trade unionists are streaming in. They can be found on the Internet at http://www.kctu.org/solidarity/dan-prison.htm. Letters from the LO-Norway, ICFTU-APRO and IUF and the MTUC in Malaysia are among some of the letters that have arrived thus far.

The efforts of the KCTU and other forces of conscience and progress are found at http://www.kctu.org/news/free-dan.htm. The text of the latest campaign news is found below.

We need a rush of protest letters and actions to pressure the government to realize that its action is not acceptable. Such massive international pressure upon a president who seems so sensitive to international public opinion may persuade the government to retract its decision and to realize that its callous practice of imprisoning trade unionists as a means of ridding itself of industrial relations issues is totally unacceptable.

Protest letters can be sent to the address below.

Mr. Kim Dae-jung
President of the Republic of Korea
1 Sejong-no, Jongno-ku
Seoul 110-820, Republic of Korea
E-mail: president@cwd.go.kr
Fax: +82 2 770-0347 or 770-0001
Tel: +82 2 770-0018

Thank you for your solidarity,

Yoon Youngmo
International Secretary
Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU)

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BACKGROUND INFORMATION

An arrest warrant was issued for the KCTU president, Dan Byung-ho, in early June this year for leading the KCTU campaign for workers who feared they would lose their jobs or have their wages reduced. He came out of a brief period of hiding to start a sit-in strike at Myongdong Cathedral. The government’s search for President Dan Byung-ho was the tip of the iceberg in terms of the government's hounding of workers and the trade union movement as can be seen by the fact that more than 200 trade unionists have been imprisoned this year.

On Aug. 2, 2001, the KCTU decided to "give up" its president, send him to jail, present him as a sacrificial lamb at the altar of repression, in order to halt the attack on workers and the trade union movement in general and to win time to regroup to address other urgent issues.

Through a Catholic mediator, an agreement was reached between the KCTU and the government to end the wave of repression. The government's "thirst for blood" seemed satiated with forcing Dan to serve out the remaining two months and four days of a previous prison sentence that was suspended in an “amnesty,” and thus, an agreement was reached. Dan would turn himself in to serve out the remainder of his suspended sentence and the government would stop hounding trade union leaders and forgo laying new charges against Dan for his alleged crimes in leading the KCTU's campaign in 2001.

Breaking the promise that sealed the "deal" between the KCTU and the government, which was made in the presence and with the blessing of a leading Catholic priest, the government has issued a fresh warrant of arrest against Dan to keep him in jail. The government now denies that there ever was a “dialogue” and “agreement” between the KCTU and itself.

The crime he is supposed to have committed, and for which the government is insisting on prosecuting him, is organizing various campaigns, demonstrations, strikes and the use of Molotov cocktails that blazed across some of the scenes of the KCTU-sponsored demonstrations this year.

The unexpected break of the government’s promise has shed a new light on the behavior of the Kim Dae-jung government. The enormity of more than 600 arrested trade unionists - more than 200 of them this year - is beginning to bear down on people.

At the same time, the sheer anti-democratic and anti-human rights behavior inherent in the government's total disregard for “technicalities” and “nuisance/nuances” of industrial relations, which have been overshadowed by the sheer urgency of the economic crisis and the Nobel Peace Prize-winning quality of the president, have suddenly come to light.

No, it is still early to conclude that the situation has changed under the government of Kim Dae-jung. Rather, there is an utter inability to comprehend how a government can just turn its back on its own promise that is bewildering the people. This arrest and imprisonment is the third for Dan during the presidency of Kim Dae-jung.

The new awakening may still force the government to reflect seriously on its simpleton approach to labor issues and its relations with the trade union movement. This, however, will require a significant assertion and exertion of simple common sense by the broadest section of people, both inside and outside of South Korea.

The simple movement to "free Dan" may jolt the government and President Kim Dae-jung out of their complacent and arrogant belief that the government and president himself are alone and the only ones who are qualified to speak about human rights (despite the laurel of the Nobel Peace Prize) and to handle an economic crisis (despite the lauded graduation from the tutelage of the International Monetary Fund [IMF]).

The KCTU appeals to all friends to join in this effort to "free Dan." We ask all of our friends and the friends of human rights and trade unions to speak to President Kim Dae-jung by sending him a letter at the address above. These letters should protest against the imprisonment of the KCTU president, Dan Byung-ho, should call on President Kim to release imprisoned trade union leaders and should urge President Kim to end the government’s imperious attitude towards workers and the trade union movement.