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The Prominents declared against it in Social Movement

Social Activists groups decided to make a campaign against the present fingerprinting for ID registration because it infringes on human right severely.

As a first step. on July 1st, 151 celebrities who rejected the system of fingerprinting announced the first declaration with Professor Kim Jin Kyun (Seoul National University), Seong Yoo Bo (a chief director in civil association for democratic press), Yi Boo Young (leader, Korea Teacher's Labor Union), and a priest Mun Jeong Hyun. The participants expressed that the fingerprinting infringe the fundamental human right. Also they criticized the government which censured the fingerprinting on Korean residents in Japan in the past but now force the same method on its own people. They criticized
this dual position of the Korean government as the matter of international and
diplomatic loss of reputation.

The participants also insisted in the declaration that forced fingerprinting justifies only in the case of criminals and that the government can't have whole nation fingerprint in any case. In addition, they worried about the digital fingerprinting system because it is a method for controlling ex-convicts and thus the present fingerprinting system could be utilized to make electronic guard and control over the whole nation. This is why they are preparing for an organization against the fingerprinting and the reason that they are organizing a nation-wide declaration campaign against it. Moreover, they plan to initiate a constitutional petition.

However, the Korean government announced the agenda to change the existing resident cards into plastic ones in last May and now the digital registration of whole nation's fingerprinting is executed. Including law on registering residents, there is no provision that the government may fingerprint a people in order to issue a resident card. The celebrities participating in the campaign have brought up a problem in that it is infringement of basic human right because it treats the whole people as criminals without any legal basis.

Japan had made the whole foreigners fingerprint coercively and it brought about
international criticism. However, Japan abrogated the fingerprinting system on
Korean-Japanese in 1992. In addition, a bill to abrogate fingerprinting on foreigners was passed in the house of Councilors last May.

All correspondence about the campaign against fingerprinting should be to
+822-778-4001.

SOURCE:KOREA HUMAN RIGHTS DAILY NEWS July 2th, 1999