[Robin Abcarian] Banning abortion is the first step. Brace yourselves for the end of many hard-fought rights

Goodbye, legal right to abortion. Goodbye, separation of church and state. Goodbye, commonsense gun laws. Goodbye, Miranda rights. And that’s just the beginning. With a fundamentalist, conservative Supreme Court majority in charge, brace yourselves for the possibility of the end of so many civil rights we take for granted: privacy, contraception, in vitro fertilization, gay marriage, interracial marriage. This is not hyperbole. On Friday, the court released its devastating ruling

June 30, 2022

[Mahfuz Anam] The new power play in South Asiac

Sheikh Hasina’s upcoming visit to India from April 7-10 is turning out to be perhaps her most important bilateral visit to a country that surrounds Bangladesh from three sides, making it the only neighbor in all but physical sense. It is now known that the Bangladeshi leader turned down the Indian request for a 25-year defense treaty. In its place there will likely be a memorandum of understanding on several related issues including purchase of equipment and weapons needed for UN peacekeeping, d

March 26, 2017

[Leonid Bershidsky] Why nationalists need overseas bond

There’s something disturbing about recent stories about the ideological kinship between Steve Bannon, US President Donald Trump’s chief strategist, and Marine Le Pen, the nationalist candidate running for French president. Isn’t nationalism supposed to travel badly across borders? Isn’t international solidarity the exclusive province of leftists crying “Workers of the world, unite!”? And aren’t anti-elite nationalist populists fighting a rootless, globalist elite that has grown fat on the border

March 24, 2017

Remembering Godang Cho Man-sik (1883-1950)

Robert Park is a founding member of the nonpartisan Worldwide Coalition to Stop Genocide in North Korea, minister, musician and former prisoner of conscience. --Ed.In a 1991 interview with the JoongAng Ilbo, North Korea‘s former ambassador to East Germany -- who defected in 1959 -- clarified the circumstances of Godang Cho Man-sik’s assassination: “After retreating to Kanggye, North Pyeongan Province, I heard from the leadership that on the night of Oct. 18 while the People‘s Army fled from Pyon

Oct. 19, 2016

Preventing crimes and suffering through justice

Inside the courtrooms of the International Criminal Court and in local communities, we are hearing the voices of those who have survived some of the world’s most heinous crimes. Stories of tremendous loss. Stories of human suffering that could have – and should have – been prevented. “I lost my entire family.” “I have lost my dignity.” “The only hope I have left is for justice.” New ICC President Judge Silvia Fernández de Gurmendi (Argentina) ©ICC-CPI​　In our own lifetimes, in conflicts unfoldin

July 17, 2016

[Voice] Is HIV testing of foreign teachers here to stay?

It is an experience familiar to many foreign English teachers: Soon after arrival in Korea, their blood is taken and screened, with the results submitted to the immigration authorities. The reason? A government policy requires that non-ethnic Korean foreigners wishing to teach children must first prove they’re HIV-free. But, amid a pending U.N. committee ruling on whether the policy constitutes racial discrimination, an unclear picture of the current status and future of testing has emerg

Nov. 25, 2013

[Voice] Is the asylum process working?

Namir says that returning to his home country of Sudan would mean a certain death sentence. His only crimes, he claims, were converting to Christianity from Islam and criticizing his government in writings on the Internet. He is just one of the more than 5,300 asylum seekers that have entered Korea since 1994, according to figures from the Ministry of Justice published in the Hankyoreh newspaper. “I was arrested and tortured many times, and based on Sharia laws that govern my country I wa

Nov. 11, 2013

[Voice] Should agriculture be subsidized?

Like the country itself, Korea’s farming sector transformed completely in a matter of decades. But unlike so many other industries, agriculture’s trajectory in the face of industrialization has been characterized by decline. From contributing 27 percent of gross domestic product in 1970, agriculture was responsible for less than 3 percent of economic activity in 2010. The farming population similarly plummeted from about 14 million people to fewer than 3 million over the same period.As in other

Oct. 28, 2013

[Voice] Is private life relevant to public life?

Public figures never have truly private lives. When that figure is a politician or other public servant, intense public scrutiny is typically defended as being in service of the public’s right to know. When allegations emerged last month that Prosecutor General Chae Dong-wook had fathered a son through an extramarital affair, the resulting media furor was accordingly intense. After repeated denials of any wrongdoing, Chae eventually offered his resignation to President Park Geun-hye and had it a

Oct. 14, 2013

[Voice] How safe is Korea’s rail?

The firmly grounded train is rarely associated with the fear felt by nervous air travelers. But a string of minor accidents in recent years, including last month’s most recent three-way train collision in Daegu, has caused the public to question the safety of one of the country’s most popular modes of travel. In 2011, there were 130 incidents involving the high-speed KTX alone, according to the Board of Audit and Inspection. The BAI laid much of the blame for these incidents on rail operator KOR

Sept. 30, 2013

[Voice] How should Korea address single parenthood?

In a country that emphasizes strongly conservative sexual mores, births outside of marriage are both frowned upon and rare. Such is the mix of social conditions, culture and taboo that the nation has the lowest proportion of out-of-wedlock births in the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, at just over 2 percent. The average among the club of rich nations, in contrast, exceeds that figure more than 15-fold. These births, in fact, represent only a tiny fraction of the number of u

Sept. 16, 2013

[Voice] Is the minimum wage high enough?

Four subway rides, a newspaper and packet of cigarettes, or one Big Mac: That is what a minimum-wage worker can buy after an hour on the job, and have change of a couple of hundred won. The minimum hourly rate of 4,860 won, due to rise to 5,210 next year, amounts to 1.08 million won a month for a 40-hour work week. Differences in purchasing power make comparison between countries difficult, but the nation’s rate ranks on the low end of the scale among wealthy nations. In 2011, just eight of the

Sept. 9, 2013

[Voice] Is the prostitution law enforced?

 In Korea, an establishment selling sex is rarely more than a short walk or mouse click away. Such is the visibility of massage parlors, room salons and karaoke joints that facilitate prostitution that a first-time visitor to a Korean city could be forgiven for thinking the sex trade was legal.Even some 40 percent of Koreans claimed to be unaware that prostitution was illegal in a survey carried out in 2001, before the introduction of the 2004 Special Law on Prostitution that criminalizes both t

Sept. 2, 2013

[Voice] Does the Constitution need changing?

In an atmosphere of intense dispute and division, the issue of constitutional revision would seem to be a rare source of agreement across the political aisle. Both then-Saenuri Party candidate Park Geun-hye and her Democratic Party challenger Moon Jae-in included a constitutional amendment in their platforms in last year’s presidential campaign. This common ground was later built upon when the parties agreed in April to form a special committee, the first of its kind, to discuss the issue. Then,

Aug. 26, 2013

[Voice] Should euthanasia be legal?

If there is a right to life, is there also a right to die? That is the question the National Bioethics Committee sought to answer in a recommendation at the end of July that terminally ill patients and their family be given the right to withdraw life-prolonging treatment in certain circumstances. The proposal, which would apply only to patients close to death with no chance of recovery, would end the current legal obligation on doctors to provide all treatment necessary to sustain life irrespect

Aug. 19, 2013