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The Gloomy Prospect of NSL Amendment and Effective HRC in Korea

1. Current Situation in Nutshell

By now there remains no political possibility that National Security
Law(NSL) will be ever repealed or significantly amended and effective Human
Rights Commission Law(HRCL) be enacted this year, in particular, until the
close of the regular session of the National Assembly, which is due on
December 9. Right after President Kim was announced to be the recipient of
the centennial Nobel Peace Prize, the ruling party set up a Special
Committee for Improvement of Human Rights to speed up and substantiate human
rights related legislations, including NSL and HRCL. Its results are quite
disappointing and deceptive.

Alarmed and infuriated, human rights and other public interest NGOs
organized in concert a powerful three day sit-in protest from November 27 to
29 in front of the Myongdong Cathedral under much media attention. Now a
serious hunger strike demanding the abolition of NSL is going on also in
front of the Myongdong Cathedral, which started on December 1, the 52nd
anniversary day of NSL, by a dozen of leading activists of the National
Solidarity for Abolition of NSL. More sit-ins, demonstrations, rallies, and
hunger strikes are scheduled this week, especially because President Kim
will depart for Oslo, Norway on December 8 to attend the Nobel Prize
awarding ceremony.

2. What happens with NSL?

NSL is to punish anti-state organizations and activities as well as
enemy-benefiting expressions and organizations. Employing these incurably
arbitrary concepts, NSL violates freedom of speech and freedom of
association. Both in theory and practice, therefore, NSL-like legislations
are not allowed in liberal and democratic states. It has been agreed that
liberal and democratic states shall maintain national security without
resort to NSLs and with the help of the general Criminal Code which punishes
the espionage of military secrets and the supply of warring enemies with war
materials. In short, liberal and democratic states should dispense with law
like NSLs.

The Inter-Korean Summit of June 15, 1999 provided President Kim with a
perfect chance to abolish NSL, we believe, but he appears to lose real
interest in significant revision of NSL this time. It now seems that the
ruling party intends to delay the NSL issue until the conclusion of a peace
treaty between two Koreas on the theory that NSL is doomed to die at that
time. But official efforts toward the peace treaty has not even been
launched yet and its fruition may take years. Up until then the human rights
of thousands of political activists will continue to be endangered. Korean
human rights NGOs therefore demanded President Kim that at least the core
clauses of NSL under which enemy-benefiting expressions and organizations
are punishable be deleted this time. The arbitrariness and thought-punishing
nature of NSL would then be much reduced. The ruling party is reluctant,
however, even to do this minimum, collectively enchanted by the false
promise that upon conclusion of in!
t!
er-Korean peace treaty they will repeal NSL once and for all.

3. What happens with Human Rights Commission Law?

Since June 1998, President Kim has promised and confirmed from time to time
to establish a model national human rights commission which is in conformity
with international standards and is welcomed by human rights NGOs. But the
subsequent legislative process shows President Kim and his party lacked
theoretical understanding of national human rights institutions and
practical strategies as to how to surmount the resistance of public
prosecutors and police officers. President Kim made a number of fatal
mistakes in connection with HRCL.

The first fatal mistake was that President Kim entrusted his Minister of
Justice with drafting the law, ignoring the inherent conflict of interests
between HRC, the monitor, and MOJ, the monitored. The natural outcome was a
puppet HRC subordinate to the Ministry of Justice. Criticism and protest
followed, but President Kim approved the basic structure of the bill and
sent it to the National Assembly. This was his second mistake. Facing
protest rallies and hunger strikes, President Kim eventually changed his
mind to order his party to reexamine the bill, but still kept silence on
its crucial issue even until now. This is his third mistake. Thanks to the
Nobel Peace Prize, the ruling party has recently decided to give the HRC a
substantial degree of independence from the MOJ, but demanded in
compensation untolerable sacrifices in effectiveness. We, the NGOs are
deceived and despaired to the point that we now believe President Kim and
his party only pay lip services to and pl!
a!
y words with human rights and human rights commission. Under these
circumstances, human rights NGOs are determined to fight, organizing the
second hunger strike of human rights activists, this time, for obtaining
effectiveness.

4. President Kim's Nobel Prize

President Kim Dae Jung will go to Norway to receive a Nobel Peace Prize
on this coming Sunday. However there are still many human rights violation
by the national power in Korea, specially by the National Security Law.
Many korean NGOs have insisted and demonstrated to abolish this law which
violated human rights most seriously. However President Kim, and the ruling
party are not supposed to abolish the National Security Law and even not to
amend the Article 7 and paragraph 3, which is the most violated human rights.