[URGENT] Democracy in Korea is under attack from its own government.

We call your immediate attention to what’s happening in Korea at this very moment.

Since the South Korean government announced a new beef import agreement with U.S. (April 18), worried Koreans—mostly middle and high school girls who would become known as “candlelight girls”—started holding candlelight vigils in downtown Seoul. As you may know by now, these almost daily vigils recently evolved into daily street protests.

However, we’re witnessing a decisive turning point now. Last night (May 31–June 1), tens of thousands of Koreans pulled off all-night street rallies in downtown Seoul. Some large groups of protesters peacefully proceeded in the direction of the Blue House, the presidential residence. The police responded with bus barricades and water cannons. During this confrontation, a high school student who was protesting on top of a police bus was attacked by a water cannon, and has reportedly lost one eye. The police discharged water directly to the student only several feet away, which is absolutely illegal. Here are some pictures showing protesters being attacked in a like manner:

There have been countless other cases of police violence and abuses. Here’s a series of pictures (taken by a staff reporter at ohmynews.com) showing riot police chasing a protester and attacking with billy clubs on the back of his head:

Here are some other pictures showing protesters injured by the police:

And some dropped fainted during scuffles with the police as shown below:

We can’t believe what we’re seeing. All this eerily reminds us of those tumultuous years of Korean politics when Korean youths poured out into the streets to protest against military dictatorships. It’s a sad irony to see the children of those protesters in the 1980’s back on the streets.

It would seem that Lee Myung-bak and his regime crossed the Rubicon. Koreans are now calling for ousting him from power.

We Koreans need your support. Right now. Please report and share what’s happening in Korea.

Thank you.

AP reporter Kelly Olsen writes an ill-informed story about street rallies in Korea.

We’re disappointed over a story on street rallies in Korea written by AP reporter Kelly Olsen. (It’s available here.)

Olsen starts by quoting a Korean housewife worrying about the possibility that her children could end up eating beef infected with mad cow disease at a restaurant, and immediately dismisses her worry as based on irrational fear by saying that the Americans “wolf down steaks and hamburgers produced from domestic cows.” This is really very irresponsible, sensational and/or ignorant reporting that pays no attention to several facts well-known to most Koreans.

First, the Korean government recently decided to allow imports of beef of cattle older than 30 months, which are known to have high risks of mad cow disease infection and which American do not “wolf down”. (Note that Japan, another major importer of U.S. beef, limits imports to beef of cattle slaughtered at 20 months and younger.) Olsen writes that “Rumors have circulated that U.S. meat packers plan to dump beef from older cows — considered at higher risk for mad cow — on the South Korean market.” But this is not a rumor. It’s what the new beef import agreement explicitly allows.

Secondly, Koreans have peculiar customs of eating almost all parts of cattle, including the brain, spinal cord, and intestine. World Organization for Animal Health (“OIE”) classify those parts of American and Canadian cattle aged 30 months or older as “Specified Risk Materials” (SRMs). The new Korea-U.S. beef import agreement orders removal of SRMs, but Koreans have good reason to doubt the rigor and safety of U.S. meat processing plants, as CNN recently reported.

Thirdly, The Korean government doesn’t have enough resources to make sure that American beef will not be sold as domestic beef. So it’s certain that some restaurants will do that to increase profit margin.

Given these facts, the Korean housewife’s worry about health risks posed by imports of U.S. beef to her children is fully understandable. If Olsen is so sure of the safety of U.S. beef, let him go eat a Korean-style beef soup made with the spinal cord of American downer cattle.

Another piece of evidence that Olsen did not do his homework before writing his article is his claim that many participants in the street rallies “have been university students, though the rallies have attracted others as well.” Everyone knows here in Korea that daily candlelight vigils were originally begun mostly by middle and high school girls, nicknamed “candlelight girls”. The vigils recently evolved into street rallies led by people in their thirties and forties. It’s only yesterday (May 29) that a large number of university students—about a thousand, still a fraction of the 20,000+ participants—started taking part.

At the end of his article Olsen quotes an editorial of Dong-a Ilbo, a rabid supporter of Lee’s heavily unpopular government. I wonder if Olsen’s ignorance and general incompetence as a reporter was spurred by reading too much of such trash dailies as Chosun Ilbo, Joongang Ilbo, and Dong-a Ilbo (collectively known here as Cho-Joong-Dong). I’d recommend Olsen to read real newspapers like Kyunghyang and Hankyoreh if he wants to be informed of opinions of Korean people.

Why Koreans are protesting

Korean people, including school children and mothers with their small infants on their backs, have been holding candlelight vigils almost daily since the government’s controversial decision to resume importing American beef. However, from the 24th of May, the candlelight vigils are turning into massive street protests. Some people—many westerners, indeed—might wonder what all the fuss is about. A Korean netizen called “Jin” wrote a clear and concise answer to that question. The original comment can be found here.

South Koreans’ protest against the government: it’s much more than just about the American beef import

I am not sure if you’ve already heard that the Korean government is going to begin to import! beef – of cattle older than 30 months, which is known to have considerable potential of ‘mad cow disease (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy)’ – from the United States within a month. Recently, as you might already know, there has been the largest, in history, beef recall in the U.S.The video footage released by Humane Society demonstrates how inappropriately the cattle are raised in the U.S, not to mention how dangerous it is, therefore, to eat the beef from those cows when the inspection system obviously falls short of ‘adequate’ in the U.S. I hear American people are increasingly concerned about this issue these days, as well.

As usual, the deal was quickly made behind the door, and when we, Korean people, found out what the president, who entered the office only about 3 months ago, has done, we were outraged. Not surprisingly, the core issues regarding the beef import! and, more import!antly, danger of mad cow disease are hardly mentioned by the media. It seems like the Korean government is repeating the same message – that, it’s OK – as the British government did before the mad cow disease began to terrify the whole country, resulting in 163 victims since the mid 80s’.

There have been a number of mass candlelight protests across the country against the deal with the U.S. The government is not only preventing media from paying attention to our voice but also calling on the police to keep an eye on the public movements, even threatening that those who participate in the protests will face ‘legal consequences.’ “Commies,” the leftist are leading the crowd, according to the government, and they argue there is a political demagogue behind the public dissent. It seems only logical to conclude that we need to take harder action against the government, because there are just way too many problems with them for us to fight against. And naturally, the public backlash is only escalating.

Even more urgent, genetically modified corns were already shipped to this country and are reportedly going on sale from next month, here in Korea. I recently learned the GMO was even rejected by African countries when it was offered as aid.

This incredibly overt neoliberal president Myung-bak Lee (shortly called MB) , former CEO, and his administration are doing everything they can to turn this country into hyper-capitalist state in such a short amount of time.

They are planning to:
1. privatize the health care system – going for “the American style.” Unbelievable.
2. privatize the water/electricity/gas supply, postal service, .
3. privatize other state-owned enterprises including the Seoul Metro, public bank(the Korea Development Bank) and other institutions in which public funds are invested.
Daewoo Ship-building & Marine Engineering – which produces submarines, destroyers, battle ships, submarine rescue vessels, AUV,
and other specialty vessels – is one of them; and it is going to be sold via Goldman Sachs Korea – in which the president’s nephew has
been lately hired as the chairman – to a private corporation or, possibly, to “China.” Obviously, this is going to be an enormous threat
to national security.
4. make a huge canal across the country – which, even before the last presidential election, was highly controversial and severely
criticized by intellectuals, environmentalists and the public, etc, for its environmental and even economic risks.
5. erase the “Japanese colony era” from textbooks, claiming we must forgive them and get over the past. As you might know, there still are a number of issues left unsolved about the historical tragedy, such as the ‘comfort women’ issue. The president was born in Osaka, Japan.

All these news came out within 3 months.

Words fail me.

In the recent visit to the U.S., the president said, in front of the audience consisting of the government officials and businesspeople, that he is “a business-friendly person, and (even though some people criticize him for being too business-friendly) wants to be more business-friendly,” and, even more outrageously, that ‘he’s the CEO of Korea. Inc.” The applause, to me, resonated as the beginning of disaster. The upcoming negotiation on FTA with the U.S. is going to enslave ‘Korea. Inc’ and the citizens to the hands of multi-national corporations.

Our hard-earned democracy is in danger.

The whole country is at stake.