Korean Progressive Network 'Jinbonet'

On May 31st, “Dopehead” and “Bungbung,” managers of the Anti-Military Service Movement website (http://www.non-serviam.org) received an email from the Information & Communication Ethics Committee (ICEC), alerting them that their website was to be shut down for two months.

30 years have passed since the Korean government forced its people to seal all of their fingers on a piece of a card. This usage started in 1968, during the late President Park’s dictatorial regime, when Kim Shin-jo and his armed troops from North Korea infiltrated near the Blue House. It is time, however, such usage be eradicated.

On May 24th, the Korean Progressive Network (Jinbonet), the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions(KCTU), the Electricity Workers Union, and the Korean Federation of Transportation, Public, & Social Service Workers’ Union prosecuted the power companies because the felt that the companies’ conduct constituted an unfair action which the labor law bans.

Because the rank-and-file was scattered, it was very important to communicate with each other and headquarters. There were websites, cell phones, and many video activists to report their struggle.

The MIC will thoroughly search for violent and obscene contents in major portal sites along with any kind of unsound information roaming in cyber space and work on settling the rating system.

Searching for a lost child by using the fingerprints is gaining popularity for its cutting edge idea, reported The Naeway Economic Daily on February 15.

Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) have built database for identifying faces and fingerprints to rear up information security industry.

According to the Electronic Times on March 4th, the US government is now trying to legalize a passport that has biological information to prevent counterfeit passport after the 9-11 terrorist attack, and Korea is also planing to drive such project.

The proposed revision of the copyright law, which is now being discussed in the National Assembly, seriously violates the Constitution by using copyright to protect investments rather than the public good. Moreover, it also aggravates the already precarious situation of “digital libraries” by prohibiting access from outside the library. We strongly insist that the revision should not be passed because it will tremendously damage the public interest.

April 22 is the Day of Information Communication in South Korea. We should prosecute government censorship because this system represses people’s internet rights and freedom of speech.

In June last year, APC received a request from JinboNet, our partner network in Korea, for support and solidarity for a 72 hour “website strike” in protest against the Korean government’s introduction, from July 1st, of a compulsory filtering system for “PC Bangs” (Cybercafes), schools and public libraries. The system blocked access to websites that the Korean government considers to be “harmful to minors.” Websites selected for blocking included mainstream lesbian and gay websites.

On Feb. 5th, nineteen civic, social and human rights organizations in South Korea hold a press conference in front of the U.S. embassy protesting against the US-VISIT and criticized that it was an apparent violation of human right.

Under the slogan, “No to the Internet Contents Rating System! We demand the resignation of the Secretary of the Ministry of Information & Communication,” a coalition of activists, students, teachers, journalists, artists, and union leaders staged a sixty-day hunger strike that ended on December 20th.

In July 2000, the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) of Korea pronounced an act called ‘Communication Order Act’, which has introduced the PICS(Platform for Internet Content Selection) under the broad framework of Internet Content Rating System. This act manifestly shows the government’s intent to control the world of WWW: the authorities concerned does not try to make the on-line world the more creative and critical space but they are attempting to tame the netizens in terms of their own rules and perspectives.

Upon the continuous hunger strike for establishing democracy and human rights in the information society, By abolishing the Internet Content Rating System, and Demanding the resignation of the Minister of Information and communication.

We from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Australia, Sweden, the U.K., the United States and Korea participanted the Asia Internet Rights Conference on November 8-10, and discussed the issues and the challenges of promoting and protecting internet rights in our respective countries. We hereby believe the importance of the internet rights for Asia people and the capacity of Asian people’s solidarity, despite the diversity of experiences shared by each participant.

■ 아시아 인터넷권리 국제회의 참석자들은 11월 11일 11시에 명동성당에서
기자회견을 갖고 아래와 같은 선언문을 발표하였습니다.

[한글 번역문]

민주주의와 자유에 대한 추구는 인터넷에서도 계속되어야 한다
– 2001년 아시아 인터넷권리 국제회의 참석자 선언 –

1.
방글라데시, 캄보디아, 홍콩, 인도, 인도네시아, 일본, 말레이시아, 몽골,
네팔, 필리핀, 스리랑카, 타이, 호주, 영국, 스웨덴, 미국, 한국 등에서 2001년
8일부터 10일까지 개최된 아시아 인터넷권리 국제회의에 참석한 우리는 각국의
인터넷 권리의 현황과 이를 증진하기 위한 과제를 논의하였다. 우리는 아시아
각국이 처해 있는 상황의 차이에도 불구하고 이 회의를 통해 인터넷 권리의
가치와 아시아 민중의 연대 가능성을 확인할 수 있었다.

우리는 발표와 토론을 통해서 세계화가 아시아 민중들의 삶을 피폐하게 만들고
있음을 확인하였다. 아시아 민중들은 서로 협력하여 이 거대한 공격을 극복해
나가야 할

Social groups in Korea assume that this is not a proper way of protection of minors but just a very dangerous censorship.

In the wake of the Ministry of Information and Communication’s announcement to implement a controversial internet content rating system, activists from several civic organizations responded with a sit-in hunger strike at Myongdong Cathedral, a traditional site of protest in Korea. Opponents of the rating system argue that it will seriously undermine freedom of expression on the internet in particular and civil liberties and social democracy in general.

Four outside experts gathered together on August 1 to review the negative impacts of the controversial human genome project. The Center for Democracy in Science and Technology at the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD) held a hearing on the expected social and ethical problems of the use of genetic information.