Amnesty planned for late April

The government will grant a special amnesty to 1,418 persons convicted of political and labor-related offenses, including members of Hanchongryun, a student organization defined as “anti-state.”
But the police will continue to hunt officials of the student group who are the subjects of arrest warrants.
The sweeping amnesty will be formally approved by the justice minister on Monday and probably approved at a meeting of the cabinet on April 29, a government source said on condition of anonymity.
The amnesty would be the first of the Roh Moo-hyun administration.
It will include some persons convicted of violating the National Security Law, the law governing demonstrations and rallies and labor laws.
Among the 1,418, 143 have been convicted of communist-related activities, 364 are student activists, 568 violated labor laws and 343 engaged in other illegal collective actions.
Some of those being considered for amnesties have been involved in highly-publicized incidents of labor unrest and pro-North Korean activism.
They include Kwon Yu-shin, sentenced for his role in a strike at Daewoo Motors Strike in 2001 and Son Jun-hyuk, a former president of Hanchongryun.
Other names being mentioned as amnesty candidates are Lim Tae-yeol, Ha Young-ok, and Lee Seog-gi, who were convicted of promoting North Korea’s state ideology of self reliance, working with North Korean agents here in the 1990s.
Dan Byung-ho, the leader of the militant Korean Confederation of Trade Unions has been imprisoned since early 2002 after being convicted of organizing a series of illegal strikes. He is also an amnesty candidate, the government official said.
But Seoul is not planning to include in the amnesty persons who have been convicted by courts-martial for refusing induction in the military service or persons convicted of violations of election laws or involvement in corruption cases.

by Park Jai-hyun