hankyoreh

at the Korea Broadcasting System building on Yeouido

KBS employees have formed a group to confront President Lee Myung-bak’s dismissal of KBS President Jung Yun-joo, announcing it will struggle aggressively to protect public broadcasting against the current administration’s scheme to take it over.

Gathering on the second floor of the KBS headquarters on Seoul’s Yeouido on August 11, some 500 KBS employees, including reporters, producers, and executives, held a launching ceremony for their group and said they would sacrifice everything to protect public broadcasting. They called the KBS board of directors’ recommendation that Jung be sacked illegal, and hence null and void, and called on the six pro-government directors that passed the recommendation to step down. They accused KBS board chairman Yoo Jae-cheon of abuse of authority in calling police into the KBS headquarters at the time of the August 8 board meeting during which Jung was voted out, and said they would block another extraordinary board meeting set for tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Lee Dong-kwan reported that while signing Jung’s dismissal, President Lee said KBS now needed to be reborn. The spokesman said this matter should be an opportunity for KBS to turn over a new leaf, minimize its lax management practices, recover its public nature and be reborn as the people’s broadcaster. Concerning the legal debate over Jung’s dismissal, he said there could be political wrangling over the matter, but he believed the legal wrangling had concluded, revealing Cheong Wa Dae’s belief that its dismissal of Jung was legal.

The Seoul Central Prosecutor’s Office, which is currently investigating Jung for breach of trust, announced its intention to get an arrest warrant for Jung sometime this week to forcefully bring him into custody. A prosecution official said they have yet to decide when to get the warrant, but between indicting Jung without an investigation or arrest, or dealing with him after getting an arrest warrant and investigating him, they were leaning towards the latter.

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