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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| S.Korean Conservatives Stage Big Anti-North Rally |
| 2004-10-04 |
| About 100,000 South Koreans staged an anti-communist rally on Monday, burning North Korean flags to press their calls for the downfall of the Pyongyang government and an end of its suspected nuclear weapons programs. The rally at Seoul's City Hall plaza in the heart of the capital drew mostly elderly people, including Korean War veterans and Christians -- conservative groups critical of the conciliatory North Korea policies of President Roh Moo-hyun. "Kim Jong-il has nuclear weapons and is threatening the international community. The free world must cooperate to get rid of this terror and anti-state regime," said protest leader Park Chan-sung. Kim is the leader of reclusive North Korea. The protest comes amid uncertainty over the fate of talks to end a stand-off over North Korea's nuclear ambitions and efforts by the South's ruling center-left Uri Party to scrap decades-old legislation banning contact with the communist North. Following Christian prayers, protesters burned North Korean flags and carried a mock plastic missile to denounce the North's nuclear program. Marchers carried placards saying "Down with Kim Jong-il!" and "Support North Korean Human Rights." The crowd, which police said reached 100,000 people, also took aim at Roh's government and his Uri Party, accusing them of being soft on North Korea. "Preserve the National Security Law to the death," protesters chanted in an attack on the Uri Party's attempts to scrap an anti-communist law. Roh's backers say the law is a relic of the country's 1970s and 1980s military dictatorships. The National Security Law uses sweeping provisions to jail those who work for enemies of the state, notably North Korea, and their sympathizers. It technically bans the kind of contacts with the North that have become commonplace in recent years. Human rights critics say former leaders used the law to quell dissent and it is redundant. Uri Party members, many former dissidents, suffered under the law in previous decades. The debate in parliament over scrapping or revising the law has taken on a bitter ideological tone because North Korea has consistently demanded the repeal of the legislation. Conservative lawmakers argue that the security law is still needed because North Korea has never renounced its goal of overthrowing the South by force -- as Pyongyang tried to do when it invaded in 1950 sparking the three-year Korean War. North and South Korea are still technically at war since their conflict ended in armed truce without a peace treaty. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #1 Here in the US, we don't jail those who work with our enemies; we nominate them for President. |
| Posted by: jackal 2004-10-04 1:38:38 PM |