Poet Song Kyung-dong and Jung Jin-woo were arrested for ‘Hope Bus’ on November 18, 2011. As you know, ‘Hope Bus’ was a voluntary civil action, which started to show social sympathy and solidarity for the laid-off Hanjin workers and Kim Jin-suk, a member of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions advisory committee, who staged a sit-in at the top of the 35-meters-high crane.
Send send signatures with contact info to contactcjpark yahoo.com
Their first court hearing is on Tuesday. The first round of signatures should come by no later than Nov. 28, 2011.
Thank you for your solidarity.
Petition for Jung Jin-woo and Poet Song Kyung-dong
We plead for the immediate cancellation of the order for arrest of Jung Jin-woo, New Progressive Party (NPP)’s head of irregular labor department.
We plead for the immediate release of poet Song Kyung-dong.
Jung Jin-woo and Poet Song Kyung-dong were arrested for ‘Hope Bus’ on November 18, 2011. As you know, ‘Hope Bus’ was a voluntary civil action, which started to show social sympathy and solidarity for the laid-off Hanjin workers and Kim Jin-suk, a member of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions advisory committee, who staged a sit-in at the top of the 35-meters-high crane.
As total over thirty thousand people participated in this action from June to November this year, the ‘Hope Bus’ received a lot of attention and supports from the society. Many civilians voluntarily joined in and paid attention because people think Hanjin’s layoffs are unfair and feel indignant about the companies’ layoffs after the 1997’s crisis, which have made almost every job insecure.
National Assembly hearing and investigation confirmed Hanjin’s layoffs violated both the required procedure and the social norms. Hanjin earned a total surplus of 427.7 billion won for ten years, and the chairman Jo Nam-ho took 12 billion won for his stock dividend in 2008. While, three thousand workers over three years are forced out onto the streets in the name of reconstruction and layoffs. Recently, it was revealed that Hanjin laid off 172 workers and the next day they invested three billion won in Maekyung general service channel, which proved Hanjin’s layoffs wasn’t inevitable and thus unjust.
Kim Jin-suk’s life-risking high-altitude sit-in has gotten international supports from a world famous scholar Noam Chomsky to German federal president Christian Wulff as well. Jung Jin-woo and many civilians joined in the ‘Hope Bus’, with the humanitarian wish that Kim Jin-suk come down to the ground safely.
Jung Jin-woo have cared for the neglected and discriminated neighbors and tried to enhance the rights of the common even at personal inconvenience.
Jung Jin-woo has strived to improve the rights of irregular workers as a party executive.
Jung Jin-woo did same thing for ‘Hope Bus’ to side with the weak to keep the social conscience. Media are also paying special attention to his arrest, and many people crave for his release.
Poet Song Kyung-dong is valued as a rare successor of the spirit of realistic poem from the history of Korean literature and ‘writer who has constructed the esthetics of hope and compassion against the low and dark world’. It is also expected of him to provide a new creative breakthrough in labor poetry. Indeed, Song Kyung-dong’s poems attracted the critics’ attention via books like “2000s’ famous young poets”(2007, treebook), “21st century, the future of Korean poetry, major works of young 49 poets for charity”(2007, Silcheon Literature), “Poems should be written as poems”v(2007, Ye-ok).
What Song Kyung-dong did was to side with the weak to keep the social conscience. Media are also paying special attention to his arrest, and many people crave for his release.
As the issue of Hanjin’s layoffs is resolved by National Assembly and many civic groups, scholars, and people of religions, we plead with the justice department for Poet Song Kyung-dong and Jung Jin-woo’s early release so that he can be back to his longing family.
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