Go to contents

Pro-North Professor Summoned Again

Posted November. 21, 2005 08:40,   

한국어

Prosecutors said yesterday that they will summon Kang Jeong-ku, a professor of sociology at Dongkuk University, to the public prosecutor’s office.

The Seoul District Prosecutors` Office, which is investigating Kang’s case, plans to search the papers and columns he wrote about the Korean War and the characteristics of the United States Forces Korea (USFK), and investigate his connection with Banminjeon, a unification organization under the Unification Front Department of North Korean Workers` Party.

The unification organization posted a New Year’s message on its homepage that this year would be the year of the withdrawal of the USFK in South Korea, and that this would start with the removal of the statue of U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur in Incheon.

Kang asserted at a lecture meeting held by a progressive organization in Incheon in late June that the statue must be demolished right away if one knew MacArthur’s true colors, and wrote a column in July containing content that the Korean War was a unification war waged by the North Korean leadership.

A prosecution official said that the prosecution thought investigating Kang under restraint was inevitable because what he had said and done could not be seen just as an opinion expressed by a scholar.

The prosecution confirmed that father of Kang, Kang Jeong-chul, and his father-in-law, Roh Sang-yong joined the Namrodang (South Korea`s Labor Party) in 1947 and 1946, respectively, prior to the Korean War, and that it plans to investigate that. The prosecution confirmed that Kang’s father-in-law was absolved in a public security trial in Gyeongnam Province in 1948.

The official said that it is likely what his father and father-in-law had gone through affected him and that the prosecution will try to approach this case carefully since controversy about guilt-by-association could be raised.

The prosecution asked the National Intelligence Service and the National Police Agency for data regarding the identity of Kang’s father and father-in-law.

Jeong Sang-myung, who has been chosen as the public prosecutor general, answered in a National Assembly hearing on November 17 that any violation of the National Security Law involves subjective factors such as the motive of remarks made and their backdrop, and Kang used the right to silence on that issue during the police’s investigation. Officials said they decided there was a possibility that Kang could run away or destroy evidence, prompting their decision to restrain him.

Jeong also said that the fact that he committed the same crime after being released on bail contributed to the decision to restrain him or not.



jin0619@donga.com