CONTACT (Click map below !!)

Turkey Branch Office : Europe & Middle East (Click map below !!)

Mobile Phone Cases (Click photo here !)

Mobile Phone Cases (Click photo here !)
Mobile Phone Cases

Saturday, December 27, 2014

One young woman who refused to stay where she was


The May 5, 2014 edition of Hankyoreh 21 weekly magazine

This has been an eventful year. Countless precious lives were lost and bizarre scandals and incidents occurred one after the other. In our rage - and sadness - we are surprised to find how quickly time has passed. While we were mourning for the departed, there were sure to be stories that we missed - some of them stories that we really should not have missed. 
In this series, Hankyoreh 21 weekly magazine looks back on 2014 through the lens of some of the cover stories that we ran this year. We will bring readers up to date on how these ten stories have developed since we first brought them to public attention.
Interview with Yong Hye-in: “We need to come together once again”
“Stay where you are.”
On Apr. 30, clusters of young people with masks covering their faces filled the streets in Myeongdong, around Hongik University, and in front of Seoul City Hall. Their faces were young; in one hand the held a chrysanthemum, in the other, a placard.
Teenagers had died because adults had told them to stay where they were.
A petite female university student came to the microphone.
“More than 100 people are still down there in the cold water. I want to ask whether we are supposed to stay where we are like the captain and crew of the Sewol ferry told the teenagers onboard, like we are taught at school and in our society.”
This was Yong Hye-in, 24, the first person to propose holding a silent vigil to commemorate the victims of the Sewol tragedy.
Until the Sewol sank off the coast of Jindo, South Jeolla Province with 476 passengers aboard, Yong was about to graduate from university and was studying for the public service exam.
Yong Hye-in participates in a silent demonstration that she initiated with other young people after the Sewol tragedy in April. The signs read, “Stay where you are”.
On Apr. 16, she was, like everyone else, infuriated at the sacrifice of so many young lives. But the blow fell especially hard on Yong. She had grown up in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, where many of the victims had gone to school, and some of the victims had been her family‘s neighbors and friends.
“I had been trying to find a way to get by on my own, but I came to realize that it was more important to find a way to get along with others,” Yong told a Hankyoreh reporter in Sinchon, Seoul, on Dec. 16.
After the silent protest, Yong has continued to play an active role in efforts to fully investigate the causes of the Sewol disaster. She has taken part in all of the Sewol rallies, without missing a single one.
Since September, she has been responsible for organizing meetings between the families of the Sewol victims and university students. In September alone, more than 30 such meetings were held.
There was no way the government would leave Yong alone.
Yong has been officially charged with violating the Assembly and Demonstration Act by marching toward the Blue House during a demonstration for the Sewol victims. The demonstration took place on Oct. 31, when the ruling and opposition parties reached an agreement about the three Sewol bills (the special Sewol Law, the Government Organization Act, and the Yoo Byung-eun Act).
All of the participants in the demonstration except for Yong were summarily indicted, with the prosecutors asking for a fine of 500,000 won (US$453.23). Investigators branded the young people, who had been brought together through social media, as the Sewol Commemorative Youth Meeting.
On Nov. 26, Yong participated in her first trial. “The government has started to shower young people with fines. As soon as the special Sewol Law was passed, trials began for crimes committed during the demonstrations. I really think that the government thought it could satisfy the people’s desire to know the truth about the Sewol by passing the special Sewol Law,” she said.
Throughout this year, Yong has spent all of her energy on the Sewol tragedy. On the verge of graduating, she took a leave of absence from her university.
Yong’s plans for the future have changed as well. She was not working for a civic group and she was not related to any of the victims of the accident, but hardly anyone participated in the demonstrations as much as she.
“For me, the Sewol sharply delineates everything that came before and after. No doubt other people feel the same way, but the tragedy made me think that, if we let society keep going in this direction, this kind of accident could happen to me. I could be the victim, the culprit, or the bystander,” Yong said.
“I had been planning to choose the easy path of becoming a public servant, but I’ve learned that there are more important things than that. I guess I can’t become a public servant anyway now, with a criminal record and all,” she added with a laugh.
Now that the furor over the Sewol has faded after the National Assembly passed the special Sewol Law, Yong hopes to finally have a chance to rest and recover.
“There’s hardly anything for me to do right now. I’m in a bit of a quandary since I’m supposed to go back to school next semester. When the fact-finding commission is launched next year, citizens will have to monitor its activities. We need to come together once more,” she said.
 
Yong is a young woman who refused to stay where she was, a woman who put her words into action. She brought a glimmer of hope to South Korean society following the Sewol tragedy.
University and high school students hold a silent demonstration in Seoul‘s Myeongdong neighborhood holding signs reading, “Stay where you are”, May 30. (by Kim Myung-jin, staff photographer)
Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]
http://h21.hani.co.kr/arti/society/society_general/38641.html
 
The May 5, 2014 edition of Hankyoreh 21 weekly magazine

related stories

Interview with Yoo Woo-sung: “All I want is a normal life”


Yoo Woo-sung

The truth comes out eventually.
For Yoo Woo-sung, 34, a contractor for the city of Seoul who was falsely accused of espionage in February of 2013, 2013 was the year when falsehood triumphed, and 2014 was the year when the truth that had been hidden by that falsehood came to light.
Though numerous people have been framed as spies by the government since the establishment of the Republic of Korea, this was the only time that the truth has come out while the trial was still underway.
This past April, Seoul High Court cleared Yoo of the charge of violating the National Security Law. In October, the Seoul Central Regional Court found four National Intelligence Service agents and two assistants guilty of fabricating evidence in Yoo‘s case.
When the news broke about the stunt that South Korea’s supreme intelligence organization had tried to pull, the entire country was appalled.
But even though the truth has been revealed, Yoo still hasn’t gotten his life back. “The pressure and stress are the same as ever. My entire routine is oriented around my court dates,” he said.
When Yoo met a Hankyoreh reporter on Dec. 17 at Seoul National University of Education Metro Station, a gloomy expression was on his face. Once or twice a month, he has to go to court.
In addition to the still-pending Supreme Court trial, he also faces a trial on charges brought by the prosecutors, who are out for blood.
After Yoo was exonerated by the lower court, the prosecutors charged him in May with failing to report money he remitted to North Korea through China as a favor for North Korean refugees, which violated the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act.
This was a case that prosecutors had shelved after beginning an investigation in 2010.
Members of conservative organizations frequently hold protests in front of the offices of Lawyers for a Democratic Society (MINBYUN), which represented Yoo in his trial. Yoo feels bad that even the lawyer who defended him has to put up with this kind of behavior.
This past November, the prosecutors asked the Korean Bar Association to discipline Jang Kyung-wook, 46, a lawyer with MINBYUN, for violating his duty to “maintain the dignity of his profession.”
“Since the truth of this injustice has been brought to light, the prosecutors ought to apologize and to show that they are sorry, but instead they are carrying out more investigations to get revenge on me for humiliating them. Even after the truth came to light, conservative newspapers have stuck with their original position. Powerful organizations are too quick to exercise their power against the powerless. I don’t know if powerless individuals have any way to defend themselves,” Yoo said.
A few days ago, Yoo met the victims of the Samcheok spy ring, who were exonerated in a retrial held 35 years after their original conviction.
“They wanted to meet me. They told me that when they saw what I was going through, they were reminded of what they had endured and they could relate to it. It really hurt them that the same things were still happening all these years later,” Yoo said.
Recently, Yoo has resumed his graduate studies in social welfare. MINBYUN and others are helping him out with his tuition. When people see him, they assume he is a spy, which makes it hard to even find part-time work.
Even Yoo’s acquaintances rarely make time for him. Once every two weeks, he says he gets counseling for his depression. “I used to be really outgoing, but now I’m a lot more wary about seeing people. It’s exhausting to worry that people might get into trouble because of me, to wonder if my phone conversations are being recorded,” he said.
There’s just one thing that Yoo wants. “I don’t want any kind of compensation. I just wish that all of the facts could be brought to light once and for all so that I can go back to a normal life. When will I be able to rid myself of the label of being a defendant? I wish that no other innocent people have to suffer as I have.”
Officials wait for the arrival of a parliamentary investigation team at the main entrance to the National Intelligence Service headquarters in Seoul’s Naegok neighborhood.
 
Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]
http://h21.hani.co.kr/arti/society/society_general/38642.html 
Yoo Woo-sung
 
Officials wait for the arrival of a parliamentary investigation team at the main entrance to the National Intelligence Service headquarters in Seoul’s Naegok neighborhood.

related stories

A Petition to Support Two South Korean Journalists, Kim Oujoon and Choo Chinwoo

imgAvaaz


Dear Supporters of Democracy,
This petition is being written to raise awareness on the severely compromised freedom of speech in South Korea.
Two well-known South Korean journalists, Mr. Kim Oujoon and Mr. Choo Chinwoo, have been indicted on defamation charges against Mr. Park Jiman, the president’s brother, and have just undergone a trial at a high court in Seoul four weeks ago. Mr. Park was implicated in relation to a murder case from 2011. In 2011, a year prior to the last presidential election, there was a criminal case where two of the close relatives of current South Korean president Park Geunhye had been killed. One of the two dead men had testified in court to support a suspicion that Mr. Park Jiman had hired a hit man to kill his brother-in-law because of a conflict over control of the family-run foundation. He was murdered a few days before he would reappear as a witness in court requested by a lawyer for Mr. Park’s brother-in-law. The investigation was done in a rushed manner and concluded that he had been murdered by his own cousin who then took his own life immediately after. Even though there were unanswered questions, suspicions, and evidence that could point in a different direction the investigation was rushed to finish.
After having spent several years looking into the Park’s family feud over the foundation Mr. Choo wrote an article about this mysterious murder case in 2012. His article raised suspicions on certain issues: why had the cousin climbed up a mountain at an incredibly fast speed after having murdered the victim just to hang himself there, why had he taken his daily medicine to improve his health just 30 minutes before his suicide, why powerful prescriptive sleeping pills had been found in his stomach afterwards, why did he have a note in his pocket with only one sentence, “NEVER to bury me, only cremation” in handwriting that was not proven to be his, and with no mention of any motive for a murder or any message to his family. He was in fact immediately cremated, so that any further forensic study in the future would not be possible even if necessary.
Mr. Choo, an investigative journalist, talked about these facts in a podcast talk show hosted by Mr. Kim Oujoon before the presidential election in 2012. This podcast, called “Nanun KKonsuda” or “I am a Crook”, was one of the world’s most downloaded political podcasts in Apple iTunes history with every episode airing weekly to over 10 million downloads. It became a sensational hit in South Korea and is considered a landmark of an experimental talk show method in South Korean political history. Mr. Kim and Mr Choo spoke of this murder case without saying it was associated with Mr. Park. They simply said that before the man showed up to court, to possibly testify against Mr. Park, he had been murdered. However, Mr. Park filed a defamation suit against these two right after the podcast aired.
In 2013 Mr. Kim and Mr. Choo were tried in a trial by jury which involved ordinary citizens as jurors and the two men were acquitted on all charges. However, the prosecutors appealed to a higher court and asked again for three years in prison for Mr. Choo and two years in prison for Mr. Kim, the same demands as the first trial. A judgment by the judge is scheduled to be delivered on January 16, 2015.
Many citizens in South Korea are concerned that the South Korean judicial system may not be completely free from influence from the current two year old conservative and authoritarian administration while dealing with this case. Recently, the administration has gone so far as dissolving a progressive opposition party, the first time ever in South Korean constitutional history. Judges may find it difficult to be fair and unbiased without at least fearing any political consequences in this situation where these two journalists, who are fiercely critical of the government, have been sued by the president’s own brother. In his closing remarks of the first trial Mr. Kim addressed to the jurors, “We were fearful when we talked about this case. However, there is only one reason why Choo Chinwoo chose to write this article despite the numerous threats against him. It is because he is a journalist. I chose to air this interview for the same reason. That is what journalism exists for. Please help us so that we can have a second and a third Choo Chinwoo.” 
The jurors responded not guilty on all charges. Mr. Kim Oujoon and Mr. Choo Chinwoo are still working on this murder case while they await judgment. Please support these two South Korean journalists in this fight, not only for the freedom of speech or the right to stand up to those in power but above all else to fight for the pursuit of truth itself!
Please sign the petition!
Sign Petition