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[NYT Op-ed] South Korea targets dissent

November 20, 2015

South Korean riot police officers spray water cannons as police officers try to break up protesters trying to march to the Presidential House after a rally against government’s policy in Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, Nov. 14, 2015. Police fired tear gas and water cannons Saturday as they clashed with anti-government demonstrators who marched through Seoul in what was believed to be the largest protest in South Korea’s capital in more than seven years.(AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

[NEW YORK TIMES]

South Koreans can be as proud of their country’s emergence from dictatorship into a vibrant democracy as they are of the rags-to-riches development that made their country a global industrial powerhouse. So it is alarming that President Park Geun-hye appears intent on backtracking on the democratic freedoms that have made South Korea as different from North Korea’s puppet regime as day is from night.

Last weekend, tens of thousands of South Koreans took to the streets to protest two repressive government initiatives. One would replace the independently selected history textbooks now available to South Korea’s educators with government-issued textbooks. The other would change labor laws to make it easier for South Korea’s family-controlled business conglomerates to fire workers.