On the occasion of Dokdo Day, local civic group Voluntary Agency Network of Korea has developed an online campaign in collaboration with advertising guru Yi Je-seok to encourage the public to check and report errors of names of Dokdo and East Sea in maps on overseas sites. 

The models for this campaign are independence activists, Ahn Jung-geun, Yun Bong-gil and Ryu Gwan-sun, who are portrayed as discovering and correcting errors on overseas sites using cellphones and computers.

The campaign posters convey the message that “reporting and correcting errors in the Sea of Japan and Takeshima (South Korea calls them East Sea and Dokdo) on overseas sites is to protect the country as the independence activists who defended our territory 100 years ago,” VANK said in a statement. 

The statement added that the solemn independence activists, who have only been seen in history books, were reborn with humorous expressions and gestures through computer graphics to become more familiar with the public.

VANK said, “Once the wrong place names are solidified on global international organizations, information organizations and portal sites, it cannot be reversed again.”

“We want to emphasize that protecting the country is not a very great and challenging task, but that our little interests and practices can gather and gain great strength.”

The campaign aims to bring about revisions to the names on websites, starting with those of the United Nations, the US Central Intelligence Agency and Google.

Yi, who was in charge of advertisement production for VANK, said, “If the ancestors of the past, who worked hard to protect the country, found out about the recently reddened East Sea and Dokdo errors, they must have grieved a lot.”

Dokdo Day, which falls on Oct. 25, was established in 2000 by the Dokdo Guard Corps, a private organization, to commemorate the centenary of the establishment of the islets as being attached to Ulleungdo, North Gyeongsang Province.

To participate in reporting errors in world maps, visit http://korea.prkorea.com/kor/iam/knowhow.jsp