On August 28th, an open conference on the role of digital libraries was held at the hall of the National Human Rights Commission in Seoul, South Korea
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The National Health Insurance System Board held talks on September 6 to try decide the retail price of Gleevec, a cancer drug used for treating leukemia, only to end by delaying the talks even further. One year has passed since the problem of Gleevec first arose.
Korean civil society organizations (CSOs) held an open discussion regarding the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) at 3 p.m., September 25th, at the conference hall of the National Human Rights Commission of South Korea.
Police arrested Kim Kang-pil, a member of the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) in South Korea on July 25th. Kim uploaded several materials related to North Korea onto the bulletin board of DLP website. Prosecution claimed his actions violated the National Security Law, Article 7, Clause 1 (an act advantageous to the enemy) and Clause 5 (bringing the materials of profit to the enemy); in this clause enemy means North Korea.
Only by this kind of public support was Novartis able to recollect all invested capital within eight months of global marketing of Gleevec. But now, Novartis has twenty years of intellectual property rights.
On July 9th, the Suwon District Court made preliminary decision against Soribada (http://www.soribada.com), a Peer to Peer (P2P) program for MP3 file sharing, should be suspended. This is the first judgement regarding this type of case since the Korean recording industry accused the Soribada managers of infringement of copyrights last January and the prosecution indicted them last August. Though the final decision for the prosecution indictment has not been decided, we are seriously worried about this judgement.
On June 27, the South Korean consitutional court ruled that Article 53 of the Electronic Communication Business law, as well as Article 16 of an enforcement ordinance ot the law, otherwise knows as “regulation of dangerous communication,” were unconstitutional for violating freedom of expression.
On May 3rd, prosecutors charged Jeon Ji-Yoon, a Sungkonhoe University student and a member of “Dahamkke,” the Democratic Labor Party’s student committee, for violation of the National Security Law (NSL). According to prosecutors, this violation stemmed from statements made by Jeon on an internet bulletin board. Jeon has been in prison since May 7th.
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.
[Statement] IN THE WAKE OF THE MOVEMENT OPPOSING RESIDENT REGISTRATION CARD WITH SEALED FINGERPRINTS
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.
