Fighting for Free Speech in the 21st Century   2009-03-01 12:22

Exactly 90 years ago, on March 1, 1919, the Korean People witnessed the beginning of one of the largest public demonstrations in their history. The March 1st Movement, as it has come to be called, was a series of predominantly peaceful demonstrations against the Japanese occupation of Korea. According to well-established sources, nearly two million people -- most of them students, peasants, and other "commoners" -- took part in protests that lasted well into April. Japanese forces, unable to contain the spread of the movement, resorted to brutal oppression. Over 7,500 protesters were killed by the police and military, and 46,000 were arrested for participating in public demonstrations.

90 years afterwards, it is March 1, 2009. Korea has been an independent country for 64 years now (or rather, a pair of independent countries, due to the Cold War which, for us, proved nothing but "cold"). Anyhow, in the meantime, South Korea, has grown to compete with Japan and other industrialized nations in many economic and cultural fronts; wherever you live, you probably own at least one item that was made in Korea. The last of our share of military dictatorships -- those of Park Chung-Hee and Chun Doo-Hwan -- ended in 1987 thanks to another set of massive democratization movements. Our Constitution provides for a wide range of basic rights, including the freedom of religion, opinion, speech, association, and assembly.

But only in words.

December 31, 2008: A curious foreigner photographs rows upon rows of police officers surrounding Jonggak Square. Tens of thousands of people had gathered there to "celebrate the new year", but a significant portion of the crowd were holding pickets and balloons with anti-authoritarian and pro-democracy messages on them. Thousands of police officers were dispatched to the scene to confiscate balloons and to prevent the onset of another anti-government demonstration. TV crew on site were directed to point their cameras away from the crowd, and to refrain from interviewing random citizens, so that no anti-government message would be shown on TV.

January 20, 2009: Despite near-freezing temperatures, Seoul Police employs water cannons in an attempt to disperse a group of demonstrators protesting police violence. Earlier that day, five protesters and one police officer had lost their lives to fire during a reckless attempt by the police to intervene in a dispute between redevelopment authorities and tenants in Yongsan, Seoul. (More on this later.)

February 21, 2009: A wall of police buses block access to Cheonggyecheon Plaza, one of very few places in central Seoul where large groups of people can assemble and demonstrate. Despite the fact that there's nothing illegal about holding a demonstration in Cheonggyecheon Plaza, the government has been blocking access to it whenever a large gathering was expected. The reason for the blockade painstakingly clear. When Cheonggyecheon Plaza is closed, demonstrators have no choice but to take it to the streets and sidewalks. This gives a perfect excuse for the police to disperse and/or arrest them for "traffic obstruction".

On numerous occasions throughout last summer and fall, I wrote about the Korean government's attempt to take control of mass media. Major newspapers such as Chosun Ilbo and Joong-Ang Ilbo are already on the neo-conservative government's side; and as early as last June, Lee Myung-Bak's government and its cartel of supporters have been pretty explicit about their desire to bring TV stations under control, too. Since then, two (KBS and YTN) of South Korea's four major news channels have had their CEOs replaced with the President's allies. The third, SBS, has always been a friend of Lee's; so the only news channel that is still unafraid to criticize the government is MBC -- the country's second largest TV station.

On February 25, President Lee's Hannara Party (a.k.a. Grand National Party) made a sudden and extremely controversial move (Sorry, the linked article is a mess...) to write into law a set of 22 proposals concerning the regulation of mass media and the Internet. As members of the opposition physically intervened in the process, it is not clear what effect this move will have; nonetheless, Hannara Party attempt was serious enough to alarm everyone concerned.

In a nutshell, Hannara Party's proposals will (1) allow newspaper corporations such as Chosun Ilbo and other conglomerates such as Samsung to own up to 20% of a major broadcasting company and up to 49% of minor channels, and (2) allow people who post defamatory statements on the Internet to be prosecuted even without the defamed party's complaint. The latter has already been at the center of controversy for several months; see my "Online Censorship: Part 3" for more discussion of the issue. But the former is a more delicate issue, and it needs to be explained in a little more detail.

A video statement by the National Union of Media Workers, released on February 27 in response to the government's recent move. The first 30 seconds of the video is in Korean, and the rest repeats the same message in several foreign languages including English. If you find this video totally confusing, read on.

So why do the opposition, the labor union, and the majority of left-leaning citizens think that allowing one company to own 20% of another company is tantamount to government control of the media? It's not as if the Lee Myung-Bak's government is trying to nationalize any private broadcaster; nor is Hannara Party trying to replace another CEO with one of the President's cronies. What, then, is so terrible about the proposal?

The problem is that MBC, the left-leaning TV station which as mentioned above is the only remaining news channel to criticize the government, is also the largest privately owned broadcasting company in Korea, i.e. anyone can buy MBC shares. (Not that it's a good idea to invest in the stock market these days!) On the other hand, the pro-government newspaper, Chosun Ilbo, has openly expressed a desire to buy MBC; and according to some reports, Samsung and a few other conglomerates may also be interested in expanding into the broadcasting market. Notice a trend here? Every one of these potential buyers are good friends with the current administration. (I actually have a neat diagram showing how all the owners of pro-government corporations are connected to one another with marriage ties... Just wait until I get the time to translate that into English!)

As incompetent as the current administration seems to be, its leaders are very clever when it comes to taking over critics and competitors without grinding into the law. (Well, it isn't really difficult if you're the one in power.) MBC is a pain in the neck for President Lee and Hannara Party; MBC reporters have been very proactive in exposing hints of corruption and other unlawful behavior among the ruling group. Why not get some of the President's own cronies (or in-laws, as it happens!) to buy a large amount of MBC shares, so that they can exert a "legitimate" influence on the way MBC is run? Get two or three newspaper companies and large conglomerates to own 20% each of MBC, and that's easily more than half. Besides, stock is dirt cheap these days...

Here's my admission. Except for the ridiculous political climate that we're in, I wouldn't be too worried about a law that allowed one company to own 20% of another company. Other companies do it all the time! But when an interest group pushes a law that is so obviously in their interest and none other, one has no choice but to suspect that something fishy is going on. And that's what I'm most worried about: losing the only major news channel that has the guts to challenge the powers that be, and moreover, losing it to the bad guys.

This post is already getting too long, so I won't say much about the "cyber insult law" (the latter of the two proposals mentioned above) except that it is a total violation of the principle of due process. When a person defames another, it is up to the defamed party to decide whether or not, and to what extent, to defend his or her reputation. That's the way it has always been, and that's the way it should be. Allow the government to step in even when the defamed party doesn't think that the case at hand is worthy of a lawsuit, only means one thing: it opens the door for the government to arbitrarily censor online speech ("Hey, you criticized the President! It seems like you defamed him, so you must go to jail!"), without really providing any additional protection to the defamed party (because the defamed party's opinion doesn't really matter). In short, the "cyber insult law" is just another way to silence the critics.

Other bits and pieces of news:

(1) Conscientious judges recently revealed that they were instructed to hand out heavier-than-usual penalties to people arrested during last summer's candlelight protests. The senior judge who handed out the instruction apparently got promoted shortly afterwards. Read full story here.

(2) A few weeks ago, someone from the Presidential House e-mailed the National Police Agency, telling the latter to create a media hype around the case of a recently arrested serial killer in order to draw public attention away from the death of five protesters in Yongsan (mentioned above). When the contents of the e-mail message was revealed in a public hearing, the Presidential House denied all knowledge of the incident and promptly fired the official whose e-mail account was involved.

(3) In late January, a bill was passed that would allow Korean citizens living abroad to vote in national elections for the first time ever. (Absentee voting has been severely limited until now, due to the difficulty of enforcing election regulations on foreign soil.) Shortly afterwards, Daum Segye-En, one of the nation's largest online forums for Koreans living abroad, was shut down without any particular reason. Users of Segye-En accused the government and Daum Corp. for attempting to prevent young Koreans living abroad from obtaining up-to-date information on domestic affairs. Next to the Internet, the most popular source of domestic news for Koreans living abroad is the newspaper. A few Korean newspapers regularly ship globally, most of which (such as Chosun Ilbo) display a strong pro-government bias.

(4) Following the physical clash that prevented the ruling party from making the controversial proposals into law, somebody in the government seems to have asked the police to keep members of the opposition out of the the National Assembly. The last time that duly elected representatives were forced out of the National Assembly was during periods of military dictatorship. Only this time, the military isn't getting involved.

Opposition members hold a press conference after having been kicked out of the meeting hall. The banner reads: "Open the door! We've got bills to work on, for the sake of the livelihood of the people!" Note that the opposition isn't particularly popular, either; most of us are fed up with both parties. A poll taken late last year indicated that more than half of Koreans support neither party.

(5) An anonymous high school student found some very interesting statistics from the website of the Public Prosecutor's Office. He drew up a couple of graphs for all to see, which became a big hit on several Internet forums:

Blue bars represent the total number of documented public gatherings each year, from 1998 to 2008. The red line represents the ratio of violent incidents as determined by the authorities. Throughout last summer, Lee Myung-Bak's government as well as all the pro-government media had published endless complaints about how the candlelight protests were getting out of control and excessively violent, and how police violence is therefore a necessary response. But looking at data from the Public Prosecutor's Office, only 0.6639% of demonstrations last year involved violence. Lower than most of the last 10 years.

Here's more:

Of the 13,406 documented public gatherings last year, 2,398 were "candlelight protests" (which lasted for approximately 100 days in two dozen cities, hence approximately 2,400). Of the 2,398 candlelight protests, 16 violent incidents were observed. Of the 11,008 other gathering, 73 violent incidents were observed. The ratio of violent incidents to the total number of demonstrations is pretty constant at 0.66-0.67%. Given the enormous number of disparate people involved, I would say that 0.67% is a pretty impressive figure. As seen above, our lawmakers seem to resort to violence a lot more than 0.67% of the time...

Conclusion: By the government's own admission, last summer's candlelight protests were no more violent than any other demonstration. Does anybody still want to say that police violence was a legitimate response to violent behavior initiated by the protesters? It's high time that all those hypocrites admitted their prejudice...

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