hankyoreh

after the ruling against them

Prosecutors indicted 33 teachers recently for posting messages on the Blue House website calling for a school walkout by other teachers for the stripping of the legal status of the Korean Teachers’ and Education Workers’ Union (KTU) and demanding the resignation of President Park Geun-hye for her mishandling over the Sewol crisis.

The KTU called the en masse indictment, which included its own current and former staff, an “arbitrary enforcement of the law” and “repudiation of freedom of expression.”

The Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office public criminal investigation department, under chief prosecutor Lee Moon-han, announced on June 26 that it had indicted 27 people without detention for organizing a nationwide teachers’ rally to call for the reversal of the KTU decision and enactment of a special law on the April 2014 Sewol ferry disaster. The individuals, who included former KTU president Kim Jung-hoon, were charged with violating the State Public Officials Act.

Kim and the others are being charged with organizing a school walkout in June 2014 and a national rally the following month to protest the administration’s decision to revoke the KTU’s legal status for allowing dismissed teachers to be members.

Prosecutors also indicted another six people without detention, including KTU teacher Lee Min-sook, for two May 2014 incidents in which messages were posted on the Blue House website and a public appeal was issued criticizing President Park Geun-hye for her handling of the Sewol sinking and calling for her resignation.

The KTU fired back, calling the decision to indict teachers en masse for “collective action” over a year after the fact as an example of “suppression by the public security apparatus.” Prosecutors previously requested arrest warrants for Kim and two others on the same charges in Sept. 2014, only to have the request rejected.

“This seems very much like the work of a ‘public security Prime Minister’ who had previously been a ‘public security Justice Minister,’” said KTU spokesperson Song Jae-hyeok, a reference to newly confirmed PM Hwang Kyo-ahn.

“By taking issue with a low-intensity gathering where participants individually requested to leave early, he is showing that he intends to suppress the KTU,” Song concluded.

Lee Min-sook said progress in investigating the Sewol tragedy and recovering the bodies has been “so lacking that I could repeat the same declaration verbatim a year later.”

“The indictment is an attempt to hold us down and tell us to ‘stay where we are,’” she added, a reference to a phrase reportedly spoken to high school students who eventually lost their lives in the sinking.

By Jung Hwan-bong, staff reporter and Lee Soo-bum, senior staff writer

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]