South Korea's unions lambasted the government's plan to implement the exclusive work permit system for migrant workers on a trial basis as a withdrawal from its reform drive.

South Korea's Ministry of Labor is moving to allow foreign industrial trainees to hold wage-earning positions, beginning as early as July, according to the daily JoongAng Ilbo, March 29. The new job category will replace the trainee program, which is more a kind of modern slavery as anything else.

Kabir Uddin and Mohammed Bidduth, two Bangladeshi workers at the forefront of the migrant workers movement in South Korea, were temporarily released on December 1st by immigration officials at the Hwaseong Immigration Processing Center.

On September 2nd, immigration officials, accompanied by 30 policemen, raided two migrant houses in Masok and detained 13 migrant workers from Bangladesh, including Kabir and Mohammed.

Last Thursday, Kabir Uddin and Muhammad Bidduth, Equality Trade Union-Migrants Branch leaders who have been detained in Hwasong Immigration Processing Center for two months since a government crackdown on migrant workers, initiated a hunger strike to protest human rights violations inside the detention center.

On September 2 at Six o'clock in the morning, nine Immigration Bureau officials and about 30 police personnel came in Songseng Industrial Zone in Masok district. They stormed in the two Bangladesh migrants' house and arrested all 13 Bangladeshi migrants residents.

The Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) held a solidarity picket outside the Korean Airlines office in downtown Toronto yesterday to protest the current crackdown on migrant workers in South Korea.

ETU will demonstrate every day in front of the immigration office unil Kabir and Mohammed are released.

May we also strongly request you to participate in the Internationally Coordinated protest action to be held in front of Korean Embassies/Consulates in your country. We are suggesting you to join us on the simultaneous rally on the 26th of June.

With this, the Korean Government creates two faces during the World Cup. One is the joyously cordiality for foreign tourist and the other is the sinister attacks to migrants workers

Korea is showing the world a welcoming foreigner-friendly face to the thousands of visitors attending the 2002 Korea/Japan World Cup games. But the face that the Korean government isn't showing is its unfair treatment of an estimated 300,000 migrant workers living and working here.

Last Thursay (May 9th) a broad coalition was formed.It was dubbed as " Struggle Alliance Opposing the Oppression to Migrant Workers and for Achieving Working Visa

Migrant workers, one after another, unite in sit-in rally for the sake of freedom of assembly and association, annihilation of massive crackdown, and achievement of working visa.

The migrant workers have resorted to a sit-in in response to government suppression of a legal rally to have been held on April 21st calling for cancellation of the new registration system currently being implemented, which they feel is tantamount to deportation, and also for fair legal status, minus the trainee system which is now in place.