[Editorial] Organized Crime Threatened Opposition Party Members

People deplore that some members of the opposition party, who demanded for the truth reveal with regard to the `Lee Yong-Ho scandal` in the National Assembly, received threatening phone calls and letters. Although the identity of those who threatened was not revealed yet, it must be done by the organized crime, and the content of the threat is sufficient to arouse anger against the organized crime. The government should protect the Assembly from the threat through thorough investigation, and should prevent assemblypersons from being harmed.

It is note worthy that three lawmakers of the Grand National Party`s (GNP) `special committee on the investigation of the power-related corruption`, including the committee`s chairperson, were threatened. Organized crime`s characteristic blackmail, which said that `we already know whereabouts of you [assemblyperson] and your children`, and `it is hard for our family to understand why [you] dig up the case, which the prosecution already found not guilty`, is an attempt to weaken the opposition party`s will to investigate and a challenge to the Assembly.

Regarding this incident, the GNP declared war against the organized crime`s terrorism, and the leaders of the Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) also announced that it was unthinkable that the political activities were threatened or violated by the organized crime. Considering that the assemblyperson is a constitutional body through the direct election of people, and that the Assembly`s unrestrained activities are the key of democracy, the organized crime`s threat to the Assembly`s activities makes one lament and worry about the fundamentals of our politics.

It is an excessive political reaction that some members of the ruling party suspect whether the incident is a self-made scenario. Although it is unveiled who really did it, considering the expression of threat and the number of assemblyperson who were threatened, it seems reasonable to suspect the organized crime and to urge the government to arrest the criminal through thorough investigation. The government and the ruling party should know that political `grapple` may weaken their positions. Isn` it the reality that due to the suspicion of some members of the ruling party, the incident of threat, which does not know the real offender, is heating up political offense and defense, and is getting `politicized`?

Regarding the threat against the assemblypersons, both the ruling and opposition party should protect the Assembly together. When a revised bill on the medical law and pharmaceutical law was submitted to the National Assembly, some people, whose interests were involved, evoked criticism by writing insulting remarks and slanderous statements in the homepage of the assemblypersons who were involved in the legislation. A lawmaker of the ruling party on the science, technology, and communication committee suffered threatening phone calls and emails by employees of a particular communication company. Regardless of the forms, the root of `terrorism without face` against the assemblypersons` activities in the Assembly should be eradicated.