Pen/Insular_Notes

McCarthyism now:

The Korea Teachers and Education Workers’ Union (KTU), at a press conference on January 22, strongly protested the arrest of Kim Maeng-gu and Choi Hwa-seop for violating the National Security Law. Kim and Choi, members of the union, posted North Korean materials on the union’s Web site, and were arrested on January 18.

The KTU says that a report by the Chosun Ilbo about the two teachers’ actions was largely fabricated. According to the KTU, the newspaper reported only some parts of the story, doing so sensationalistically to garner a reaction. The two teachers merely quoted remarks made by North Korean officials and media, said the KTU. The union cited as an example material that answers the question, “Why does North Korea want to produce nuclear weapons?” from a North Korean perspective: “North Korea claims that to possess self-defensive nuclear deterrence is its justifiable right.”

And:

Maybe Korean society is turning more toward conservativism, but we just cannot stand back and let people be arrested for something like this. The material the two teachers posted is barely any different from what the Chosun Ilbo, the first paper to take issue with the teachers’ actions, has on its informational site regarding North Korea. There is similar material all over the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development’s “peace school” site.

Some might say the teachers’ union site has a lot more influence on students and teachers and so there should be no comparison to a newspaper’s site on North Korea. However, on the Chosun Ilbo’s site, there is a “homework helper” corner where this very moment students are getting information about North Korea. There is a “teacher’s room” for teachers doing lessons on “unification education,” and there you will find the Pyongyang government’s New Year’s Address and plenty of other primary source materials. Students and teachers are just a few clicks away from original North Korean sources. This makes the situation more than just discrimination - it’s comical.

And McCarthyism then:

A Seoul court on Tuesday acquitted eight South Koreans of treason, more than three decades after they were executed by hanging on conviction of trying to organize a subversive pro-North Korean body.

The Seoul Central District Court said the defendants were not guilty of forming an underground pro-communist group with the aim to overthrow the then authoritarian South Korean government of President Park Chung-hee.

The eight, including a Japanese language teacher and a construction company official, were executed in April, 1975, only 20 hours after the Supreme Court found them guilty of trying to rebuild what state prosecutors said was a disbanded pro-communist group called “inheyokdang,” or “People’s Revolutionary Party.”
…
In its 2005 report, the NIS concluded that the so-called “party” was nothing but a student circle interested in pro-democracy movements and that a “committee for reconstructing the party” allegedly organized by the eight victims was non-existent.

UPDATE:
Jay at the IKTU blog has a long and excellent post on this subject.

UPDATE 2:
For readers of Korean, the renewed witchhunt against members of the Korea Teachers’ Union is the lead story in this week’s edition of the Counterfire newspaper. Unfortunately I can’t seem to access the site from any internet connection in the UK. Not sure why.