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1. Historical Background

The National Security Law was legislated fifty-one years ago in 1948. After getting out of the colonial rule by the Japanese imperialism, separate governments were set up in South and North of the Korean peninsula in 1948. Although the government of the Republic of Korea in the south of the peninsula made illegal the leftist movement, there existed underground substantially strong leftist forces and there had largely been the involvement of the left wing in uprisings of great scale occurred nationwide. While the National Security Law was promulgated with a view to regulate the activities of these leftist forces, it was bound to assume the character of violating the freedoms of thought, expression, assembly, association and peaceful demonstrations of all nationals as well as the leftist forces from the beginning.

While the left wing has been dwindled almost to non-existence in the South through the Korean War in which the left and the right fought each other in a cruel manner, the National Security Law has continuously reinforced itself and exists even today. That North Korea continues to threaten South Korea is the reason for the continuance of the National Security Law. All the dictatorial regimes which came and vanished in the modern history of Korea, availed themselves of the National Security Law in order to suppress the civil and political rights of their opponent forces and to sustain the strong anti-communist society by diminishing the political consciousness of the ordinary people.

2. National Security Law

The core concept of the National Security Law is 'anti-State organization' (Article 2) and the National Security Law is the enactment that punish all acts related with this 'anti-State organization'. These are: acts of forming or joining an 'anti-State organization' (Article 3), acts of coming and going into the areas controlled by the 'anti-State organization' (Article 6), all acts of praising and sympathizing an 'anti-State organization' and acts of possession of such expressions (Article 7), acts of meeting and corresponding with the 'anti-State organization' (Article 8) and the like. Such an 'anti-State organization' means concretely the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Korean National Security Law still designates North Korea as the 'anti-State organization' after North became a State internationally recognised when both South and North Korea obtained membership of the United Nations in 1991.
The expressed terms of the National Security Law is so abstract and vague that academics argue that it contracts the principle of nullum crimen sine lege. The number of people in South Korea punished under the National Security Law has never been decreased under the Kim Dae Jung government in comparison with the past. The number of detainees under the National Security Law for the first year since the inauguration of the Kim Dae Jung government is 413 and this amounts to almost 60 percent of all political prisoners of South Korea in this period.

After examining the government report of the Republic of Korea at the 45 session, the United National Human Rights Committee pointed out in its conclusions (CCPR/C/79/Add.6) as follows:

The Committee's main concern relates to the continued operation of the National Security Law. Although the particular situation in which the Republic of Korea finds itself implications on public order in the country, its influence ought not to be overestimated. The Committee believes that ordinary laws and specifically applicable criminal laws should be sufficient to deal with offences against national security.
Furthermore, some issues addressed by the National Security Law are defined in somewhatvague terms, allowing for broad interpretation that may result in sanctioning acts that may not be truly dangerous for sate security and responses unauthorized by Covenant ... The Committee recommends that the State party intensify its efforts to bring its legislation more in line with the provisions of the Covenant.
To that end, a serous attempt ought to be mate to phase out the National Security Law which the Committee perceives as a major obstacle to the full realization of the rights enshrined in the Covenant and, in the meanwhile, not to derogate from certain basic rights.

3. Article 7

The cases of violation of civil rights under the National Security Law are centered on Article 7 almost exclusively. The main content of Article 7 of the National Security Law is to punish (i) acts of praising, sympathizing or propagandizing of an 'anti-State organization (para. 1), (ii) acts of organizing and joining of an association for such purposes (para. 3), (iii) acts of making, distributing or possessing all such expressions (para. 5). Article 7 is the provision that enables the punishment of those acts of assembly and expression unrelated to North Korea, and has been invoked traditionally to punish the 'enemies of the governmental regime'.

The statistics of the first year after the start of the Kim Dae Jung government shows that 396 of the 413 people (95.8 %) had been detained for the violation of Article 7 of the National Security Law. The victims vary widely from the owner of the publication company, 'netizens' who expressed opinions through the computer communications to the producers and presenters of the documentary films.
Mr. Abid Hussain, the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression appointed by the UN Commission on Human Rights strongly recommended to the Korean government to repeal the National Security Law for its violation of the freedom of expression in his report to the 51st session of the Commission (E/CN.4/1996/39/Add.1, 21 November 1995).
In the Park Tae Hun and the Kim Geun Tae cases where the Korean courts convicted them individually in application of paragraphs 1, 3 and 5 of Article 7 of the National Security Law, the UN Human Rights Committee decided that these violated the freedom of expression under Article 19 of the Civil and Political Rights Covenant and called upon the Korean government to take appropriate remedial actions (CCPR/C/64/D/628/1995, 3 November 1998; CCPR/64/D/574/1994, 20 November 1998). But the Korean government has not taken any remedial action so far to these two victims.

4. The Public Opinion on the National Security Law

In November 22, 1998, the Hangyoreh newspaper and three representative human rights groups (Lawyers for the Democratic Society, MINGAHYUP Human Rights Group and SARANGBANG Group for Human Rights) conducted together a survey of public opinion on the National Security Law. The survey was done by the public opinion survey team of the Hangyoreh newspaper and the result is as follows.

<1. Repeal, 2. Attenuation, 3. Maintenance, 4. Reinforcement,
5. Do-not-know-well>

Ordinary People : 1- 7.7%, 2- 70.5%, 3-11.6%, 4- 7.3%, 5-2.9%
Lawyers : 1- 27.5%, 2-65.4%, 3-4.6%, 4-0.7%, 5-2%
Law Professors: 1-29%, 2- 70%, 3-0%, 4-0%, 5-1%

There are existing active movements for the abolition of the National Security Law now in Korea. A number of organizations joined the 'People's Solidarity for the Abolition of the National Security Law' and there are solidarity networks each in the Catholic, the Buddhists, and the Reformist Churches for its repeal. About 250 civil groups demand either revision or repeal of the National Security Law in certain forms.

5. The Position of the Government and the Ruling Party

President Kim Dae Jung told to the domestic audience recently after a speech in the United States that "the National Security Law will be revised in accordance with the changing situation of times". However he made clear lately that not only did he intend ever to repeal, but also he had no intention to repeal or bring fundamental change to Article 7 which has the greatest potential to violate human rights. In compliance with the intention of President Kim Dae Jung, the ruling party makes it its own policy at the moment to put amendments to trivial parts while retaining the essential part of the National Security Law. Prosecutors are most strongly opposed to the repeal of Article 7 of the National Security Law. < by SaRangBang Group for Human Rights : rights@chollian.net>