Human Rights Groups Protest Alleged Abuses in S. Korea

Two hundred Korean human rights advocates from major U.S. cities, Europe, Japan, South Korea and Australia converged Friday on Los Angeles’ Koreatown to publicize what they say are rampant human rights violations in South Korea.

“The South Korean government puts on a democratic face to the world, but inside Korea, it’s business as usual,” said Minn Chung during a noontime rally in front of the South Korean Consulate in the Mid-Wilshire district. “The Cold War may be over elsewhere, but in South Korea there are more than 900 political prisoners languishing in its jails,” said Chung, a spokesman for Koreans United from San Jose. “The government doesn’t hesitate to invoke national security laws to arrest people they don’t like--be they dissidents or labor organizers.”

The protesters, representing half a dozen human rights organizations, whose members also include some non-Koreans, are in Los Angeles for a two-day conference, which begins today, to discuss human rights in South Korea.

They called on the South Korean government to release all political prisoners and repeal what they called Draconian national security laws.

Chung said that since South Korean President Roh Tae-Woo took office in 1988, there have been 5,472 people arrested for political activities. “How can you call his a democratic government when the basic democratic freedoms are suppressed?” he asked.

Of the reported 900 political prisoners, half were charged with violating national security laws, according to the Committee for the Repeal of the National Security Laws and the Release of Political Prisoners in South Korea. The figures have been corroborated by other human rights organizations such as the New York-based Asia Watch.

Chong-Song Park, South Korean consul general in Los Angeles, denied that there are 900 political prisoners in his country. As for the national security laws, he said, “As long as the Korean peninsula remains divided, we need those laws.”