(Please
feel free to incorporate these points in your letter to President
Kim Dae Jung or the South Korean Embassy and opinion statement to
the media.)
We
strongly urge the South Korean government to exercise its obligation
to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by:
Complying
to the views issued by the U.N. Human Rights Committee in
October 1998, including an appropriate compensation to Mr.
Tae-Hoon Park "for having been convicted for exercising
his right to freedom of expression";
Repealing
the National Security Law, as urged by the Committee in
1992 and the U.N. Special Rapporteur in 1995;
Releasing
all political prisoners convicted by the National Security
Law, as urged by the U.N. Special Rapporteur in 1995.
Born
out of the Cold War, the National Security Law of South Korea
has been applied broadly to arrest, indict, sentence and/or execute
students, trade unionists, political activists, farmers and even
common citizens. The NSL continues its long life after the Cold
War and avails to the governments that will use it to undermine
political opinion and expression.
The
political and military situation between North and South Korea
should not be exaggerated to justify the practices of the NSL.
Human
right violations under South Korea's National Security Law are
an international issue. The arbitrary nature and practice of the
NSL are in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
to which South Korea became a party in 1990.
International
human rights organizations, legal scholars, leading politicians,
and the U.N. Human Rights Committee have condemned the National
Security Law's gross violation of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights.
In
1992, the U.N. Human Rights Committee called for the repeal of
the NSL. In 1995, the Special Rapporteur, charged by the U.N.
Human Rights Commission to investigate South Korea's human rights
violations, reiterated the call for repeal. And recently, the
U.N. Human Rights Committee expressed further criticism of the
NSL by way of views issued for a complaint brought forth by Tae-Hoon
Park, one of many victims of NSL convictions.
Tae-Hoon
Park was convicted in 1989 for violating the NSL. His conviction
was based on his membership and activities, during his study in
the U.S. from 1983 to 1989, with Young Koreans United (YKU), a
Korean American grassroots organization that has been highly critical
of South Korea's military governments through peaceful and law
abiding means of expression. Upon his return to South Korea, Park
was immediately arrested and detained for 50 days before any formal
indictment, and was subsequently sentenced to one year's inprisonment
with one year's probation.
South
Korea must not compromise the right of expression and opinion
of its citizens over an increasingly tenuous argument for national
security. With its respectable standing in economic and military
capability, South Korea not only have the means, but the responsibility
before the international community to abide by international human
rights laws.