South Korea has a long history of Corruption, surging in the very recent past.
We now know more details of systematic illegal oppression of dissent by Pres. Lee Myung-bak and his successor, Pres. Park Geun-hye. Their governments secretly used Korea's National Intelligence Service (대한민국국가정보원, 국정원 or NIS) as a hammer against those who resisted their right-wing agenda. They expanded the anti-Communist efforts of decades past to include widespread abuse of people because of personal vendetta and party politics.
We now hear of an "enemies list" of about 10,000 artists and cultural people whose livelihoods were disrupted by systematic government suppression. (link), (link)
Actions to "counter and marginalize influential figures and groups in the fields of art and culture" included designating 82 higher-profile people as targets.
"The NIS not only arranged tax audits of the entertainment companies to which these celebrities belonged but also engineered the reassignment of broadcasting staff who produced programs that featured them, blocked them from becoming candidates for the chairs of international film festival committees and even meddled in the selection of the winners of the broadcasting awards by asking for these figures to be dropped from the competition" (Hankyoreh, 12 Sept 2017).
And meanwhile, the government was supporting cronies and rightist groups through hidden funding sources and cutouts such as the Federation of Korean Industries. Surely the public sector officials who implemented these secretly destructive policies should be pressed to explain their acts.
All illegal - Korea's crooked government deliberately sought to ruin people's lives, and succeeded doing so for many years. The USA monitors Korean domestic politics (and may in fact be more active). Certainly & sadly, Yankee did nothing public or positive to intervene.
We now know more details of systematic illegal oppression of dissent by Pres. Lee Myung-bak and his successor, Pres. Park Geun-hye. Their governments secretly used Korea's National Intelligence Service (대한민국국가정보원, 국정원 or NIS) as a hammer against those who resisted their right-wing agenda. They expanded the anti-Communist efforts of decades past to include widespread abuse of people because of personal vendetta and party politics.
We now hear of an "enemies list" of about 10,000 artists and cultural people whose livelihoods were disrupted by systematic government suppression. (link), (link)
Actions to "counter and marginalize influential figures and groups in the fields of art and culture" included designating 82 higher-profile people as targets.
"The NIS not only arranged tax audits of the entertainment companies to which these celebrities belonged but also engineered the reassignment of broadcasting staff who produced programs that featured them, blocked them from becoming candidates for the chairs of international film festival committees and even meddled in the selection of the winners of the broadcasting awards by asking for these figures to be dropped from the competition" (Hankyoreh, 12 Sept 2017).
And meanwhile, the government was supporting cronies and rightist groups through hidden funding sources and cutouts such as the Federation of Korean Industries. Surely the public sector officials who implemented these secretly destructive policies should be pressed to explain their acts.
All illegal - Korea's crooked government deliberately sought to ruin people's lives, and succeeded doing so for many years. The USA monitors Korean domestic politics (and may in fact be more active). Certainly & sadly, Yankee did nothing public or positive to intervene.
