This Month at PSPD, December 2023

From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free

On November 17th, 2,000 pairs – representing merely 20% of the actual dead – of donated shoes were displayed in Bosingak Square, South Korea. A banner with the names and ages of the dead was also hung over the fence. It was to demonstrate that the deaths of the Palestines are not just numbers.
90 civil society organizations(below Emergency Action Group), including the PSPD, held the “Protests of Shoes Mourning All the Victims” and “Night of Remembrance” to mourn the victims. At the same time, they called on the Israeli government to stop the slaughter and immediately cease the massacre. Fortunately, a four-day ceasefire began on November 24 after that, but it is a very temporary and unstable ceasefire.
In response, the Emergency Action Group met with two MPs Kim Sang-hee and Bae Jin-kyo of the National Assembly along with Waleed Siam, the ambassador of the Palestinian delegation in Japan. Ambassador Waleed Siam, who visited Korea to inform the Palestinian situation, appealed for the Korean National Assembly to play an active role in the freedom and peace of Palestine, stressing that “what is happening now is not a war, but slaughter and cleaning of Palestinians.”
Currently, the National Assembly has a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire for the protection of civilians and humanitarian support due to the Israeli-Palestinian war, proposed by Representative Kim Sang-hee. Kim Sang-hee and Bae Jin-kyo, who met with Ambassador Walid Siam, vowed to do their part to pass the ceasefire resolution in the National Assembly.
Then, on Nov. 26, the Third Emergency Action for Korean Civil Society, which condemns Israel’s attack on Gaza, took place in Cheonggyecheon, Seoul. PSPD and the Emergency Action Group plan to steadily call for a permanent ceasefire and for Israel to stop the genocide of Palestinian civilians. In addition, we will continue to call on the Korean government and the National Assembly to make every effort for a peaceful world as a member of the international community.

2023 Campaign Avengers

The 2023 campaign Avengers, which ran for four months from July to October, ended successfully. Campaign Avengers, run by the PSPD Youth, is a program where young people plan and execute their own campaigns. This year, a total of 12 campaigners were active under the themes of online hate speech (gender team) and fast fashion (environmental team).

[Hitting the rock campaign] At least the egg residue is left
The PSPD Youth Gender Team, which ran a campaign on online hate, produced a total of 11 different kinds of online contents including Instatoon, video, article and others, to signal the severance of online hate speech. They also gathered 381 signatures and delivered them to the Korea Communications Commission (Oct 27) during the campaign to urge regulations on hate speeches and industries. In addition, they urged the government to come up with institutional regulations for large platform companies such as YouTube, Meta, and X (formerly Twitter), which are making money from minority-discriminating content.

[Sustainable clothings campaign] Fast Fashion Is Not Cool
The Environmental Team’s campaign publicized the environmental pollution caused by fast fashion and voiced criticism against the huge fashion industry and the government. They displayed some performances at the “2024 S/S Seoul Fashion Week” site (Sep 9) and Myeongdong Street (Oct 14) of Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul, and a booth was held for the theme of fast fashion and the climate crisis at the September 23 Climate Justice march. In addition, they started taking logs on NO Consumption Practice activities to explore ways to practice “STOP! Fast Fashion” with young people in their 20s and 30s, the main consumer groups of fast fashion.

We Carefully Examined the 2024 Health and Welfare Budget submitted by the Government

According to the National Budget Total spending on health and welfare increased by 12.2% next year, but the increase is noticeable only in the fund sector, and other budgets are virtually close to a cut. PSPD announced the budget to be increased with the following core demands ▲Restoration of subsidies from local governments’ social services ▲ Expanding budget for national and public daycare centers ▲ Expanding budget for elderly care facilities ▲ Increasing the unit price of self-help benefits ▲ Expanding budget for pilot projects for health insurance ▲ Expanding budget for treatment of sick workers ▲ Expanding the budget for pilot projects for treatment of sick workers. The following budget should be reduced (▲ Reducing the budget for medical commercialization). In addition, we also demanded the expansion of daycare centers and the transfer of the general account for functional reinforcement projects.

‘Jeonse’ Fraud Not Addressed

Although the Special Act on Jeonse Fraud was passed by the National Assembly in May, victims living in multi-family houses, trust houses, and non-residential officetels are still receiving no support. In order to inform the actual situation of the victims in the blind spot and to seek support measures, a press conference was held at the National Assembly (Nov 21) to urge the victims to hold a meeting and deliberate on the amendment of the Special Act. In addition, the revised edition of 10 QnAs for Jeonse Fraud victims was published along with Minbyun and Taxpayers 114. We will stand in solidarity with the victims until the end so that the special law will be revised in the last regular session of the 21st National Assembly.

In the era of climate crisis, what kind of transition should we make?

The Institute for a Participatory Society held a forum titled “How the Welfare State and Party Politics Meet with the System Transition.” The welfare state, which presupposes that welfare levels will rise based on continuous production expansion, is no longer an effective option in the era of climate crisis. Each party should discuss and realize the possibility of a system transition while contemplating this reality, but the climate crisis still does not emerge as a major issue. This forum highlighted the direction of changes in the welfare state model for the transition to the climate crisis era and the role of party politics.

We Are Concerned With President Yoon’s “Judicial Conservative” bias

President Yoon Suk Yeol has nominated right wing candidates one after another as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and the Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court. Lee Kyun-yong, a candidate for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, did not secure the post due to problems such as missing property reports and poor gender sensitivity. Lee Jong-seok, a candidate for the Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court, is also controversial due to his problematic ruling that turned a blind eye to minorities and his personal friendship with the President, so it is questionable whether he is suitable as the head of the Constitutional Court to check the power of the state and protect the spirit of the Constitution. PSPD has pointed out that the judges in question are ineligible and has criticized the government’s biased personnel decisions. We will continue to raise our voices to ensure that properly verified judges are appointed to ensure the independence of the judiciary and the basic rights of the people.

Translated by a PSPD Volunteer