hankyoreh

the 60th anniversary of the NSL’s enactment.

On Monday, the 60th anniversary of the enactment of the National Security Law, a total of 4,712 people from various fields released a statement urging the law’s abolition. The individuals included prominent figures from academia, the religious world and civic and social groups.

People Solidarity for National Security Law Abolition, which includes participation from over 300 civic and social groups such as MINBYUN-Lawyers for a Democratic Society, Catholic Priests’ Association for Justice and Jinbo Corea, released “A Statement on the 60th Anniversary of the Enactment of the National Security Law” at the Seoul Press Center on Monday morning. The statement urges “ending the age of barbarity by abolishing the National Security Law, which has reigned as a peerlessly vicious law for the last sixty years.”

Through the statement, PSNSLA said, “For the past 60 years in which the National Security Law has dominated, the human conscience, freedom and democracy have been gruesomely trampled.” The statement went on to say, “Because we cannot speak of democracy and a free progressive movement, or peace and unification, with this law in place, let us go on fighting fiercely for the abolition of the National Security Law through resistance and disobedience.”

Those present at the announcement of the statement included Paek Ki-wan, director of the Unification Issue Research Center; Baek Seung-heon, president of MINBYUN; Kim Soo-haeng, SungKongHoe endowed chair; the parents of martyrs Jeon Tae-il, Park Jong-cheol and Lee Han-yeol; and Yonsei University Professor Emeritus Oh Sei-chull, recently investigated because of an incident involving the Socialist Workers League of Korea.

The PSNSLA announced plans to continue carrying out activities to block measures such as the “National Security Law pseudo-legal system,” which includes the undesirable amendment of the National Intelligence Service and communication secrecy laws to monitor citizens in their everyday lives and silence voices critical of the government, as well as the enactment of a national cyber-crisis management act.

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