Student group status tested

The movement to legalize the banned Hanchongryun, a university student organization designated as an “anti-state body” under the National Security Law, is picking up speed.
Moon Jae-in, Blue House senior secretary for civil affairs, said Saturday the government will seek to drop charges against Hanchongryun members currently wanted by police.
Mr. Moon met Saturday at the Blue House with Jeong Jae-wook, the newly elected president of Hanchongryun, and other organization officials.
“The government will try faithfully to discharge the wanted members from the list as soon as possible,” Mr. Moon said. But he added that there is not enough time for the pardons to go through by the end of the month, when a mass parole of currently-incarcerated members of the group is expected.
“The legalization of the organization is a difficult task that cannot be achieved directly by the president or the Blue House. We will cooperate with the justice ministry and the prosecution on the matter,” Mr. Moon said.
“This is the first time for a top government official to promise the discharge,” a Hanchongryun official after the meeting said.
More than 40 former student activists, including Millennium Democratic Party Lawmakers Song Young-gil and Oh Young-sick, and Lee In-young, the party’s top young official, held a press conference yesterday on the matter.
“Hanchongryun is seeking for a change. The government should respond to the group as soon as possible by discharging the wanted members from the police’s list,” a press release from the conference said. The conference members pledged to work for the full legalization of the organization and the abolition of the National Security Law, a law they said “infringes on the freedom of conscience.”
Hanchongryun is the largest university student organization in Korea, and most university student associations belong to it. Since the Supreme Court in 1998 ruled that the organization was an anti-state body that gives help to North Korea, however, hundreds of students has been arrested each year. But with former activist Roh Moo-hyun taking the presidency, discussions to lift the ban on the organization began.

by Kim Jung-ha