Over at One Free Korea he has a good round up about from the State Department report that criticizes the Moon administration for their on going efforts to censor criticism from their opponents:
In December, I was a panelist at this event at the American Enterprise Institute. You can read the transcript here, or watch it on video here. In my remarks, I tried to put the censorship of South Korea’s left and right into that country’s recent historical context, noting the signs that left-wing leaders who emerged from a nominally pro-democracy movement were now engaging in a strategic and systematic campaign to silence defectors, vloggers, and political critics through internet censorship and defamation suits. The Korean Embassy sent its resident propagandist to that event to denounce this as “fake news,” a phrase that Donald Trump has sown in the lexicons of authoritarians everywhere. You can see me harangue him near the end of the event, after each panelist speaks and after Professor Sung-yoon Lee’s more extended comments.
As it turns out, I was not the only one who noted some of the same events with concern. The State Department’s annual country reports on human rights also mentioned a number of them:
The bus ad: "Do you want to hack the White House?" "Then it's Woosong Univ" in #SouthKorea. Anti-US themes, blatant praise of Kim Jong Un, submissive attitude toward China–not the SK most people know, but made possible by #MoonJaein, his party, his supporters–small % of SK popn https://t.co/g7h0rB1f79
It will be interesting to see if the use of over four different genders spreads throughout other government agencies in South Korea:
The National Human Rights Commission will add a non-binary gender option in its official document. / Yonhap
The state-run human rights watchdog is set to add a non-binary gender option in official petition documents in a move to embrace lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) people.
The National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) will be the first government organization to offer a gender-neutral option in official papers.
“After recently receiving a petition urging us to allow a third-gender option in our petition documents, a relevant department reviewed it and reached the conclusion that this was permissible,” said an NHRCK official.
“We are now working to change our petition forms to reflect the decision, and new documents will be available within a month.”
Currently, those who file petitions with the commission must identify themselves as male, female, transgender male or transgender female in their applications.
“We accepted the petitioner’s claim that there could be more than the four genders,” the official said.
You can read more at the link, but at least there is not 71 different gender options yet. Can you imagine what government forms would look like with 71 different gender options on them?
This is another example that there is not freedom of speech in South Korea:
In this photo, provided by a reader, a bulletin board at a university in Mokpo, in South Jeolla Province, bears a North-Korean style poster on March 31, 2019. (Yonhap)
Police said Monday they began a preliminary probe into North Korean-style posters that appeared on walls at several universities nationwide lampooning the current Moon Jae-in government over its key policies. The National Police Agency said it is gathering facts on a number of 112 calls made since Saturday with regard to the anti-government posters found hanging on bulletin boards at least 30 colleges in Seoul, Busan, Gangwon, as well as the southern Gyeongsang and Jeolla regions. “We will see if the content of the posters carry expressions that can be deemed defamation or contempt,” a NPA official said. The 55-by-80 centimeter, two-page poster, entitled “A Letter to South Korean Students,” blasts President Moon Jae-in’s key policies, such as income-led growth, his push to phase out nuclear power and the policy of engagement with North Korea. The poster is printed in the unique typeface North Korea often uses in its propaganda and appears intended as ridicule of the government. It calls for the overthrow of the liberal Moon administration and ends with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s signature, by his official title as chairman of the DPRK State Affairs Commission. The DPRK stands for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The poster, claiming to be written by Jeondaehyup, calls for students to join a massive rally slated for Saturday at a public park near Seoul’s Hyewha Station. Jeondaehyup is an abbreviation for the now-disbanded hard-line national student activists’ association that led key democracy movements in the 1980s. The association had been attacked by South Korea’s conservative bloc for its pro-North Korea tendencies.
This article makes me wonder what the real story is that the police are going after the Samsung heiress for something that may have happened 3 years ago?:
Lee Boo-jin
Police searched a plastic surgery clinic, Saturday, as part of an investigation into an allegation that Hotel Shilla CEO Lee Boo-jin habitually received injections of propofol, an intravenous short-acting anesthetic. Lee is also the oldest daughter of Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Kun-hee.
Investigators from the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency carried out an eight-hour search at the Gangnam-based clinic from 6:30 p.m., Saturday, and confiscated Lee’s medical records and the clinic’s drug control records.
They conducted a digital forensic analysis to restore deleted data, as well.
Later in the day, police announced they had booked the head of the clinic on the charge of violating the Medical Law.
The search came three days after the drug abuse allegation was first reported by a local media outlet, citing a former employee of the clinic.
According to the report by Newstapa, Lee was regularly given propofol at the hospital from January to October 2016 while the witness worked there. The former employee said Lee received the substance in a VIP room at least twice a month.
In the wake of the allegation, police asked the clinic to submit its documents without seeking a warrant, but it refused to comply.
Hotel Shilla has parried the allegation, claiming that she had only visited the clinic for legitimate treatment.
So does anyone have any issues with the plastic bag ban that is about to go into affect in South Korea?:
Use of disposable plastic bags will be banned at large retailers nationwide, starting next month, as part of the government’s efforts to reduce waste and conserve the environment, the Ministry of Environment said Wednesday.
The ministry said about 2,000 hypermarkets and approximately 11,000 big supermarkets with sales floor space of 165 square meters or more will be prohibited from offering disposable plastic bags to their clients from April 1.
Department stores and large shopping malls are also subject to the revised enforcement regulation of the Act on the Promotion of Saving and Recycling of Resources, the ministry said.
Retailers that violate the ban could face fines of up to 3 million won (around $2,644).
Moon Jae-in's body guard shows a machine gun, looks to be an MP-7. His hand positions indicate he's ready to engage. Brandishing a weapon like that is extremely odd. It's usually hidden. This is at a busy market place in Daegu. If he uses it, it would create a lot of casualties. pic.twitter.com/DNZCkawoLA
Under Moon, S.Korea's military intelligence, Defense Security Command will memorate the Former President Park Chung-hee's Assassin, Kim Jae Kyu by putting his photo on the wall. It is like put the picture of #JFK assassin, Lee Oswald on the wall of #DIAhttps://t.co/buMg8B1q4T
“The main issue is that there’s just no escaping them.”
Once I was reading mainstream Korean news outlets online at a law firm in the US and someone threatened to tell her superiors I was looking at porn sites. https://t.co/z9NPgGMGUc
If you have wondered if the masks that many Koreans wear to protect themselves from fine dust work, well this study indicates that they do:
Most face masks tested recently by a consumer group work as advertised, with only one failing.
The Daejeon and South Chungcheong branch of the Voice for Consumers tested 20 masks for their ability to protect wearers against particulate pollutants, and 19 provided the level of protection equal to or better than that claimed on the packaging.
All 20 products passed purity tests, which checked for chemicals such as formaldehyde.
YJ Corporation’s large-sized YJCM3 product, sold as a Korea Filter (KF) 94 mask, filtered only 87 percent of particulate matter compared to its advertised amount – 94 percent.
The KF mark indicates the percentage of particulate matter filtered.
The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety has ordered the YJ Corporation mask that failed the test to be recalled and discarded. Production may also be stopped for violating pharmaceutical laws. The organization also checked 50 mask products for the level of information on the packaging, and it found that six did not provide sufficient information. It also reported that some 3M Nexcare mask products, past their expiration period of 36 months, were being sold.
