Appeal for solidarity with South Korean opposition posted by Richard Seymour

South Korea's police are conducting a search for Kim Kwang-Il, a socialist and antiwar activist, and leading member of the socialist group 'All Together'. (You can read an interview with him here.) As a leader in the 'Candlelight Movement' sparked by the government's neoliberal policies, he is the only one not yet captured. After mass, peaceful protests all summer that had been sparked by the government's decision to resume the import of US beef suspected of carrying 'mad cow' disease, the government is harrassing the Left with a series of raids and arrests and, using repressive anticommunist laws from the dictatorship era, the cops have already arrested the chair of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. They have the offices of the 'All Together' movement and placed it under constant surveillance. The government is also interfering in academic freedom, the better to bury the emerging revisionist histories that potentially bring the state's legitimacy into question. Socialist Worker is carrying an appeal in support of the opposition, which they encourage people to circulate and sign.

Labels: anti-war, dictatorship, socialism, south korea, trade unions