PSPD in English Newsletter 2012-07-06   2510

PSPD Newsletter: May-June 2012

PSPD Newsletter, May-June
<Civil and Political Rights related activities>
1. PSPD Urged to Disclose a Truth of Illegal Surveillance!
PSPD initiated to establish ‘Emergency Action for Finding Truth of Concealed Illegal Surveillance against Civilians and Punishment of the Responsible (Emergency Action for Illegal Surveillance)’. On 17 May 2012, at the Gwanghwamun Square, the Emergency Action for Illegal Surveillance urged the President Lee Myung-bak to voluntarily disclose every single truth about the secret team of the Blue House and illegal surveillance against civilians.
2. PSPD accused a former justice of Supreme Court for violating the Attorney At-Law Act
On 5 April 2012, PSPD has accused a Lawyer Go, hyun-chul for violating Article 31 of the Attorney-At-Law Act (restriction on acceptance of case) as he accepted a pending case which he was involved while he was working as a Supreme Court judge. He was a Supreme Court judge and a chairman of the National Election Commission. Currently, he is the President of Supreme Court Human Resource System Improvement Committee and a Counsel to the law firm Bae, Kim and Lee LLC. The violation was reported by Mr. Jeong Kuk-jeong, a victim of the said case and a whistle blower. In 1996, while working for the LG Electronics, he happened to find out internal corruption and reported it to the Internal Affairs. However, he was disadvantaged from reporting and as a result, he was excluded from the promotion, became an outcast and eventually fired in 2000. 


<Socio-Economic Rights related Activities>
1. PSPD sent an open questionnaire to the Ministry of Labour for its negligence to guide and supervise Ssangyong Motors’ failure to fulfil the agreement between the management and the labour union.
For more than 1,000 days, the dispute on Ssangyong Motors’ layoff has not been resolved. The management has not implemented the agreement with the union which was signed in 2009 and has repeatedly given same excuse of financial difficulties. Moreover, the Government has also failed to fulfil its role to guide and supervise if an agreement is implemented. Even though in 2009 both parties agreed upon including ‘unpaid leave, voluntary leave and business transfer’ in recruitment, the management posted up the notice of hiring new and experienced employees in April this year on its website. This is an absolute violation of collective agreement and reemployment priority of the Labour Standard Act. Hence, PSPD has sent an open questionnaire to the Ministry of Labour in regard to the current status of guiding and supervising non-fulfilment, and measures to be followed. In addition, PSPD will hold a press conference with other civil society organizations to urge the Government to hold public hearing on this matter and organise meetings with heads of political parties and the Minister for Labour.
2. The International Workers Memorial Day (28 April 2012)
“Your empty space will be remembered” 
In commemoration of the International Workers Memorial Day, civil society organizations have designated the memorial period from 23 to 28 April 2012 and inaugurated Civil Memorial Committee in which more than 900 people and 40 organizations have joined. The Committee organised a number of events including a public lecture on occupational health and its definition, and memorial ceremony ‘your empty space will be remembered’. The tragic death of workers should happen no more. While remembering the deceased from occupational accidents, PSPD will continue to work for all people to work in a safe and healthy environment.

 
3. PSPD works on building public day care centres 
Recently, corruptions at several day care centres have been uncovered. These centres have made false registration of children and nursery teachers to receive more subsidies and misused the management fund for private. They failed to register commuting vehicles, did not keep standards for catering, health and sanitary, and even took illegal rebate. The Government has increased the subsidies accordingly to the free nursery policy but it has been used for filling centres’ pockets. Even though corruptions have been exposed, coalition of private day care centres said to strike demanding fee increase, lessening control and supervision, and deregulation. As like answering to their demands, the Ministry of Health and Welfare has proposed reform measures to eliminate mandate submission of income and expenditure of small sized day care centres, to allow company house, and to decrease supervision of the Government. Therefore, PSPD together with other civil society organisations have submitted a condemning statement to the Ministry of Health, calling on to reinforce regulations and expand public day care centres.
<Peace and Disarmament> 
1. The society encouraging Military Education on Military Education
Military education which is similar to a paramilitary training for children and juveniles has increased for the last three to four years under the name of national security and army life experience. Concerns are raised that a lot of aspects of this education programme violate human rights of children. It makes children to manipulate and try to use mass destruction weapons, and even allows pointing them out to each other. On a Children’s day which is 5 May, PSPD issued a statement to raise this issue on the table questioning how military education can contribute to raising children to a global citizen and the world peace. Furthermore, how security, hostility, killing techniques and mass destruction weapons will affect personality growth of children. 
2. Making Jeju Island like Hawaii?
Ms. Park, Geun-hye, the chairperson of emergency response commission of the Saenuri Party, said to make Jeju Island like Hawaii. PSPD issued a statement to inform and raise awareness of a true face of Hawaii. Expect places where were being used, 828 areas were contaminated and 749 sites within the Naval Complex of Pearl Harbour are polluted. Every year, the US military executes live-fire artillery training in Hawaii and military toxins have contaminated the environment and nature ecosystem of the Island. Consequently, 82% of around 1,100 indigenous animals and plants are endangered. If navel complex were not built, Hawaii would have stayed as a beautiful island in peace. PSPD will publicize the fact that Hawaii is a good example of how military facilities can damage and destroy the area.
<International Solidarity> 
1. Asian Human Rights Defenders gathered together on May 18
As a part of 2012 Gwangju Asia Forum, Solidarity for Democracy Movement in Asia (SDMA) organised two workshops related to democracy in Asia. PSPD is also a part of SDMA network. The workshop ‘Monitoring and Assessing Democracies in Asia’ was held on 16 May and the ‘Judicial Watch: Review of Verdict by Asian Civil Society’ workshop was held on the following day. During the first workshop, participants discussed a strategy on developing monitoring to assess democracy in Asia with Asian civil society perspectives.  

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