Urgent Appeal: Eight South Korean Labor Activists Face 4-7 Years in Prison

On Dec. 3 of last year, the prosecutor in the Seoul
Central District Court demanded prison terms of 5-7 years for
Oh sei-chull and other members (Yang Hyo-seok, Yang
Joon-seok, Choi Young-ik, Park Joon-seon, Jeong Won-hyung, and
Oh Min-gyu) of the Socialist Workers’ Alliance of
Korea (SWLK), a revolutionary socialist group. These
activists in the Korean working-class movement were indicted under
South Korea’s notorious National Security Law (passed in
1948
and theoretically still stipulating the death penalty
for “pro-North” activities). The eight militants of
the SWLK, who as internationalists advocate working-class
revolution in both Koreas, were accused of no specific
crime except being socialists, but in reality the
indictment resulted from their intervention in several strikes
and movements going back to 2007. This is the first
instance of such harsh repression under the National Security Law
in many years. It occurs in the larger
context of the hard-right turn (such as the smashing
of the Ssangyong Motor Co. strike of 2009) of South Korean
President Lee Myong Bak’s government since he took
office in early 2008. (In fact, leaflets of the SWLK
distributed during the Ssangyong strike were key evidence in the
trial.)

Prosecutors have attempted to indict members of the
SWLK several times since 2008, and prior to December, the
prosecutors’ case was thrown out of court each time.
It is not impossible that a barrage of e-mail protests to
Judge Hyung Doo Kim of the Seoul Central District Court will
help reduce or obviate the pending sentences altogether,
when final sentencing will take place on Jan. 27.

Let Judge Kim know your feelings in your own words
about this crackdown on “thought crime” by writing to

 swlk@jinbo.net

The e-mails must be received by 06:00 AM on Monday
January
17th 2011 (Seoul time), so that the SWLK’s lawyer
can
forward them to Judge Kim prior to sentencing.

Please distribute this appeal as widely as possible.
Messages in languages other than English are welcome.

Loren Goldner
For further details on this case, contact me at  lrgoldner@gmail.com