Victimizing the Freedom of Press in the Pretext of Tax Justice

The lawmakers of the Grand National Party poured out their blames against the arrest of the owners of the major press companies and the drastically increased the numbers of broadcasting of President at the National Investigation.

Rep. Jeong Byong-Guk asserted that ``the activities of the President such as Presidential address, press conference, and dialogues with the people of the 3 broadcasting corporations for the past 3 years and 6 months of the DJ administration recorded 160 times, which already outnumbers 26 times over 134 broadcastings of the YS administration in 5 years.`` He also mentioned that ``the excessive broadcasting of the special programs about President evidences the effort of the DJ administration on the broadcasting and it proves that the government is carrying out the instructions of the `press control document.`` which reads ``the government must befriend with the broadcasting instead of the newspapers.``

Rep. Lee Ju-Young insisted that ``it is absolutely out of point that the government sacrifices the press freedom for the tax justice.``

However, Kim Dae-Woong, the Chief Prosecutor of the Seoul District Prosecutors Office, replied that ``the Prosecutors Office confined and indicted the owners of the press because of the potential runways and the destruction of evidences. Currently, the Prosecutors office is not considering of the suspension of confinement.``

Meanwhile, Rep. Shin Young-Guk (GNP) asserted, ``while the government set up a plan to supply 10 percent of oil by the development of the foreign oil fields for the security of oil supply by 2010, the support and investment of the government is far behind the necessary demand.``

Kim Jeong-Hun jnghn@donga.com