From: People’s Action Against the APEC and Bush, South Korea
Email: antiapec hanmail.net / Fax: +82-2-2068-6340

This year’s APEC Summit will take place in Busan, South Korea, on November 18-19. The summit will be attended by the heads of 21 countries including George Bush, Junichiro Koizumi, Vladimir Putin, Hu Jintao, and Roh Moo-hyun. In protest to such a meeting, diverse and numerous organizations of the labor and people’s movements including the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), the Korean Peasants’ League, and the Democratic Labor Party gathered to form a coalition (People’s Action Against the APEC and Bush) and planned to have big demonstrates during the meeting. The coalition knows too well that the APEC has been one of the strong supporters of Bush’s war and purports to be an effective instrument in the expansion of neo-liberalism. But most important, George Bush is coming to South Korea.

However, the South Korean government is reacting like a neurotic patient and oppressing the freedom of expression. Currently, Busan City’s District of Haeun has rejected the coalition’s 237 applications for public gathering. We will take any means necessary to exercise our inalienable right to express our opinion. We have filed a complaint to the Human Rights Commission and reported to the media exposing the hypocrisy of the government.

To make things worse, the South Korean government announced that it will stop 998 international activists with past history of participating in anti-globalization demonstrations from entering South Korea. This is clearly another way to attack the coalition’s effort to organize the demonstration against the APEC and Bush. But if such a ban is enforced it will clear set a disastrous precedence for other governments to ban international activists, especially the Chinese who is keen on a large number of Korean activists going to Hong Kong to protest against the WTO ministerial conference in next month.

The coalition urgently appeals for international anti-war movements and anti-neoliberal globalization movements around the world to support our efforts and join in protest against the South Korean government.

In the spirit of international solidarity, we would like to urge you to send a message of protest and condemnation to the South Korean government.

1. Please send an email or fax or call the Korean embassies in your country condemning the South Korean government’s oppression against the freedom of expression and banning of international activists from entering South Korea.

(Please send a copy of the message to us.)

2. Send messages of support to

Email: antiapec hanmail.net

Fax: +82-2-2068-6340