02 Feb 12 | Asia and Pacific, Index Index, minipost
South Korean prosecutors indicted a social media and free speech activist on Tuesday for reposting tweets from a North Korean government website. Photographer Park Jung-geun was detained last month on charges of violating South Korea’s National Security Law, which broadly bans “acts that benefit the enemy”. Park was interrogated by detectives following a police raid on his photo studio last autumn. Park has said the tweets — which included reposting North Korean propaganda messages such as “long live Kim Jong-il!” and links to North Korean propaganda songs — were intended to mock the North Korean regime.
06 Dec 11 | Index Index, minipost
Plans to intensify South Korea’s review of web content, including social networking sites and mobile phone applications have been released.
The review, which aims to combat a surge in “illegal and harmful” information online, has been underway since 2008, but the Korea Communications Standards Commission’s latest plans to reshuffle departments will make way for a review team that will oversee new media content.
Social media users and civic groups believe the new plans constitute a clamp down on freedom of expression.
26 Sep 11 | Index Index, minipost
The Chinese authorities are holding a group of South Korean journalists from a daily newspaper on suspicion of spying. The group, which is believed to consist of four journalists, the head of a Seoul-based government transport research centre and a local guide, were arrested near China’s border with North Korea on 20 September whilst reportedly travelling on tourist visas.
30 Aug 11 | Uncategorized
It’s not only China that’s working on a musical blacklist. Over 2,600 songs have been banned in the past two years in South Korea after being flagged for “hazardous media content” by the South Korean Ministry of Gender Equality and Family.
But it’s not 1990s boy bands whose declarations of love are being censored. Lyrics deemed “problematic” by the ministry have included references to the effects of alcohol made by contemporary Korean groups.
The ministry’s aim is to protect young people from “negative cultural influences”, but both musicians and fans have criticised the ban as an infringement on freedom of expression. One netizen wrote,
This is pitiful. We are living in the internet era and they forbid songs due to their references to liquor? One can easily access to more hard-core stuff online… Why dont you just block the internet, deeming it inappropriate for kids below age 19. […] They spent about 21 billion 940 million Korean Won (approximately 200 million USD) of government money this year in censoring these songs! [This refers to the Ministry’s yearly budget, not the total amount of money spent on the censorship alone] Will songs about liquor (exclusively) prompt kids to drink alcohol? The kids are not that simple. Why don’t you, the Ministry, focus on taking care of runaway kids rather than doing this?
Lee Yoo Eun at Global Voices Online has a great wrap-up of the story.
