hankyoreh

Government agencies plan to establish a series of powerful new laws in accordance with the wishes of President Lee Myung-bak. However, as a key component of these plans includes the use of physical force, there are concerns about the abuse of public power, and fears that the freedoms of assembly and demonstration could be restricted and social conflicts could arise.

During a briefing to President Lee on March 15, the National Police Agency unveiled a plan to organize a police task force that would arrest illegal demonstrators. The task force is reminiscent of riot police squads that operated under the Fifth Republic and were notorious for ruthlessly quelling demonstrations during that time. These forces were later abolished due to the number of casualties inflicted as demonstrators were arrested. The police agency said that it will apply a rule of non-tolerance to those who obstruct government officials in the discharge of their duties, no matter how lightly, and plans to increase the punishment for people who hold illegal demonstrations.

President Lee seemed to have been encouraging the police when he said, “If foreign television programs show the nation’s unlawful, violent demonstrators wielding iron pipes, the value of the national brand will drop and the nation’s economic activities will also be affected.” Lee also urged the police to make a new beginning by setting 2008 as the year to improve the culture of assemblies and demonstrations. After Lee’s Lunar New Year’s Day speech, in which he put special emphasis on the importance of law and order, the police formed a related task force in mid-January and since then have worked on making a manual whose contents include instructions for the arrest all demonstrators crossing police lines.

In a briefing to President Lee on March 13, the Labor Ministry said that it will try to dissuade trade unions from inciting combative negotiations and strikes, persuade them to abide by the law and work to strengthen employer supervision.

Civic groups and human rights organizations are concerned about the government’s plans, and say that, if realized, more casualties and social conflicts could occur, just as with the riot police forces established under the Fifth Republic, the period from 1980-1987 under the rule of Chun Doo-hwan that saw the Gwangju Uprising on May 18, 1980 and the declaration of martial law.

This year, the number of demonstrations by non-governmental organizations is expected to increase, on issues ranging from a pending South Korea-U.S. free trade agreement, a bill on irregular workers and the government’s plan to build a waterway from Seoul to Busan via a series of interconnecting canals.

“Previously, the administration of former President Roh Moo-hyun had proposed a plan for management of assemblies and demonstrations by the police that would also have included pulling government assistance from organizations taking part in illegal gatherings, but did not carry it out,” said Park Rae-gun, of the civic organization Sarangbang Group for Human Rights. “Police data show that illegal, violent demonstrations account for just a small portion of all demonstrations. The government plan is anticipated to cause unnecessary physical confrontations,” Park added.

According to data released by the National Police Agency, the number of violent, unlawful demonstrations has steadily decreased to 64 in 2007, or 0.54 percent, from 215, or 1.64 percent, in 2001.

Kim Tae-hyeon, an official of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, one of the nation’s two umbrella labor organizations, worried that the government could decide to use its power to advocate for anti-labor laws as a way of resolving labor-management disputes.

“As labor-government disputes will inevitably intensify because of issues related to irregular workers and the privatization of the public sector, and the government is taking a strong attitude toward these problems, the nation is going to witness serious struggles during the first half of this year,” Kim said.

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