Release SUH Immediately!
Guarantee Freedom of Expression and Thought!
Stop All Surveillance and Control!

SUH Joon-sik, Director of Sarangbang Group for Human Rights in Korea, was arrested on November 5th.  It was only because director SUH, who has been leading the activity of improving the human rights in Korea, refused to take pre-censorship on 'the Second Human Rights Film Festival'.  His arrest reveals strikingly that freedom of expression and thought in this country is at serious risk.
In Autumn 1996, the judicial decision that pre-censorship is unconstitutional was an important  turning point related to the freedom of expression and thought in Korea.  But the situation has been much more degenerating in 1997.  The blade of punishments and surveillance has been directed toward all the media, including film, book, cartoon, and Internet, more severely than ever.
Pre-censorship was forced upon many film festivals, including Indi-forum, 'The First Queer Film Festival' and 'The Second Human Rights Film Festival'. Rejecting Pre-censorship, they suffered every kind of disturbance and physical suppression by government power.  Many books and cartoons which had been distributed freely underwent sudden dispute over obscenity, and the conscience and freedom of creation by writers was frozen with fear.  Some managers of the human and social science bookstores have been arrested only because of selling and distributing materials which are suspicioned of benefiting the enemy. And, the whole access to a computer communication service in USA (www.geocities.com) was blocked because it provided some information on North Korea. Moreover, the present government disturbed the films for [Seoul International  LaborMedia '97] during all the conference. All these things show that the freedoms of press, publishing, assembly and association are not guaranteed at all, owing to various surveillance and control.
Besides, 'electronic identification card system', which Korean government plans to introduce, is the system for surveillance using advanced electronic technology.  What is still worse, information technologies are being used for surveillance and control of workers in many worksites.
[Seoul International  LaborMedia '97] is an event for promoting the use of the advanced scientific technologies for workers' solidarity and the interest of workers' rights and welfare. All the participants of [Seoul International  LaborMedia '97] give attention to recent situations in Korea, because in Korea surveillance and control are being forced upon people including wokers, and the suppression on freedom of expression and thought are getting serious. Such suppressions are based on the notorious NSPA act(National Security Planning Agency act). We are seriously worried about the situation that every candidate of each conservative parties, who is running for the 15th president election, insists that the NSPA act should be preserved.

We hope all these conditions will be improved, and we insist Korean government accept our demands below immediately.

- Release SUH, Joon-sik immediately.
- Withdraw the electronic identification card plan.
- Stop all the surveillance and control
- Abolish the NSPA act immediately
- Guarantee the freedom of expression and thought fully.

November 12, 1997
Participants of Seoul International LaborMedia '97
