Death Report: Truth or Fiction?   2008-06-07 04:06

As we have remarked in several other posts, rumors of a death due to police violence has been in circulation for quite a few days now. Alleged photographic evidence of the "murder" has also been posted in several Internet forums. Heated debates have been going on as to whether or not these photographs are genuine, and if so, if they really show a death. Because the incident in question took place in the middle of the night in a relatively dark street, it is difficult to tell.

Now it is reported that the police has found and arrested the person who posted these photographs. Unlike in the case of hundreds of other arrests that we've witnessed over the last couple of weeks, this person has been officially charged with a crime -- namely, the crime of disseminating falsity.

It will take a long and winding trial to find out whether what he was "disseminating" was "falsity" or not. Meanwhile, those who have been communicating with him on various Internet forums are worried. Does the police have positive evidence that they had killed nobody? Or is the government just trying to shut us up by threatening legal action? For all we know, it could take months or years for the trial to proceed. It is not unimaginable that somebody high up might want to thwart the immediate threat of the People's angry response by all possible means, with little regard for the trial stage. The fact that all reference to this incident has disappeared overnight from most major news channels is also contributing to the People's suspicion. So we continue to demand this of President Lee Myung-Bak's government: If you can't -- or don't want to -- prove what you claim to be the case, let other people disagree freely. That's a fundamental rule of democracy; dictator is the name of the politician who tries to get around this rule.

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