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Police drag Solidarity Against Disability Discrimination co-representative Lee Gyu-sik out of a bus at Seoul’s Hyehwa Rotary on July 17, 2023, as he protests for fair access to public transport for disabled people. (Yonhap)

Amnesty International noted the continuous “erosion of rights to freedom of expression” in South Korea in its annual human rights report, released Wednesday.
 
This week, Amnesty International released its “State of the World’s Human Rights” report, which examines the human rights situation in 155 countries. In the report, the group expressed concern over the state of human rights in general in South Korea. Each year, the group issues this comprehensive report that examines and analyzes the state of human rights at global, regional and national levels.
 
Amnesty International picked freedom of expression, workers’ rights, and the right to a healthy environment as factors of major concern in the country. 

“The erosion of rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly continued against a backdrop of a government clampdown on ‘illegal’ protests,” the report noted, mentioning transport company Seoul Metro’s suit against the disability advocacy group Solidarity Against Disability Discrimination in January 2023, in which Seoul Metro claimed 600 million won (US$4359,00) in damages.
 
The report also mentioned how “harassment of labour activists intensified in the context of President Yoon [Suk-yeol]’s anti-union rhetoric,” while referencing Korean Construction Workers Union executive Yang Hoe-dong’s self-immolation. Yang protested the government’s heavy-handed investigations into construction labor unions, which the government likened to “thugs,” by setting himself on fire outside of the Gangneung branch of the Chuncheon District Court on May Day of 2023. Police then forcibly tore down the public memorial space installed to commemorate Yang and raided the KCWU’s office.

Members of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions hold a 20,000-person-strong rally in Seoul on May 31, 2023, where they commemorate Yang Hoe-dong, a unionist who self-immolated on May 1 in protest of the heavy-handed investigations into union members, and call on the government to step down. (Shin So-young/The Hankyoreh)

 
Amnesty also assessed South Korea’s plans to fight global warming to be well below expectations. Kim Ji-hak, the director of Amnesty International’s South Korea branch, said, “The government adopted the National Basic Plan for Carbon Neutrality and Green Growth, which promises to lower greenhouse gas emissions in the industrial sector without passing legislation to phase out coal in energy production. Since we are now facing a climate catastrophe, instead of a climate crisis, the government must prioritize the protection of human rights in its policies to address climate change.”
 
South Korea was not the only place where human rights were going downhill according to Amnesty. Agnès Callamard, the secretary general of Amnesty, cited the Israel-Hamas conflict and the Russian-Ukrainian war when stating, “States and armed groups frequently perpetrated unlawful attacks and killings in an increasing number of armed conflicts” and that the world is “hurtling backwards past the 1948 promise of universal human rights.”
 
“‘Authoritarian’ practices and ideas permeated many governments and societies. North to south, east to west, authoritarian policies ate away at freedoms of expression and association, hit out at gender equality, and eroded sexual and reproductive rights,” she also noted.

By Kim Chae-woon, staff reporter

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