Victimization of HUFS student

Vicious attacks are being waged against students in South Korean universities. Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (HUFS) is the scene of the latest such attack. On the 18th of August, the school administration unilaterally announced its decision to indefinitely suspend Cho Myung-Hoon, a student member of All Together. His crime: ‘tarnishing the school’s reputation’ by distributing leaflets that exposed the administrative faculty’s sexual harassment of staff workers who were on strike.
The HUFS staff workers’ union strike, which continues to this day, began in response to an attempt by the administration to effectively uproot the union. This is a union that had won an agreement from the school in 2004 to ‘regularize’(i.e. grant stable employment with full benefits) its ‘irregular’ employees(workers on precarious, short-term contracts). Moreover, this is a union that led the university-wide campaign in the second half of 2005 for a democratic election of the next president in which the student community, the staff, and faculty could all participate. The campaign did not succeed, and the new president eventually got elected at a clandestine meeting of a few dozen professors gathered in a hotel room.
Pak Chul, the new president, set out to weaken the union as soon as he took office at the beginning of 2006. When it came time to renegotiate the collective agreement, the president took issue with the union membership of 48 staff workers in the position of section chief or higher. “It violates both law [not true] and principle”, he said. On the 14th of March, the administration unilaterally declared it would not honor the current collective agreement. Then it sent threatening letters to the families of the 48 union members in question, urging them to forfeit membership. Their expulsion had now become the precondition for any further negotiations. On the 24th, the school sacked 6 irregular workers.
On the 6th of April, the union went on strike. In the few rounds of negotiation that were held since, the administration showed little sign of conciliation. Quite the contrary: on the 5th of June the president fired 3 of the 22 section chief level workers still retaining membership. On the 8th, he tried to punish another 15 workers for ‘taking part in an illegal demonstration’. On the 26th, administrative professors assaulted a procession of workers making routine rounds around the campus; one of the professors struck a worker in the face with his palm; another did the same with his fist; they hurled insults and sexually harassed female workers by saying dirty things like: “I can see your breasts – keep them out of sight, will you?”
The All Together group in HUFS, which had been siding with the union throughout the whole time, responded in the usual way: by posting wall papers and distributing leaflets denouncing the conduct of the professors. But this time, they not only distributed them to HUFS students but also to high school students and their parents visiting HUFS to apply for the school. In this seemingly minor detail the school authorities saw an opportunity to crack down on All Together. They singled out Cho Myung-Hoon, the leader of the group in HUFS. On the 7th of August Cho received a phone call from a member of the school’s disciplinary committee instructing him to appear before the committee scheduled to meet the very next day. Asked what for, he answered: “must have something to do with the leaflets you distributed on the 24th… I’m not sure”. Cho protested and demanded his ‘trial’ be postponed until the beginning of the new school term in late August. This the authorities could not do, since their intent was to conclude the matter as swiftly as possible so that by the time students came back from vacation their crime would go largely unnoticed. So the committee meeting was postponed by a mere 3 days, to the 11th of August. But Cho was not about to walk silently into the hyenas’ den. On the morning of the 11th, he showed up at the designated building along with 30 other angry students. In a brilliant show of solidarity, 150 union members showed up as well. It was learned at the meeting that Cho’s official crime was that he had disseminated ‘fabricated stories’ to ‘people outside the school’, thus ‘tarnishing the school’s reputation’.
The same day afternoon, Cho found out from an internet news brief that the committee decided to suspend him indefinitely. On the 18th, the president ratified the decision and posted it on the school’s web page. Not once was Cho informed of the process. Later it was discovered that the disciplinary committee had not even convened properly because, according to regulations, the committee has to include the dean of the department where the student in question belongs - in Cho’s case the English department. Instead the dean of the Western Languages department had shown up. It didn’t matter to the president.

On the 21st of August, Cho held a press conference in front of the main gate in which 40 students and 200 workers took part. Messages of support began pouring in from human rights organizations and progressive formations including the Korea Democratic Labor Party. On the 31st of September, 70 students and 70 union members demonstrated against his victimization. Meanwhile Cho requested a meeting with the president 3 times, but every time the president refused. Could it have been guilty conscience? On the 6th of September it was revealed – to everyone’s shock – that as early as August 11th, the school administration had called on the police to investigate Cho on charges of defamation. The discovery came when Cho received a phone call from the police notifying him of an impending investigation. This shows just how far the administration is willing to go in order to silence dissent. Of all the recent attacks on student rights in Korean universities, HUFS’ was the most naked. The outcome of this fight will have ripple effects way beyond the HUFS campus.

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HUFS Workers and Student Committee to Defend Cho Myung-hoon