Freedom to Protest in Korea?

Political scandals are a dime a dozen here, and most people tune out the news. But the latest, involving Choi Soon-sil, President Park Geun-hye’s friend for decades, has been breathtaking. The revelations, about just how much influence this one woman with no official government position might have wielded over the government, point to a discomfiting possibility: Power in this country seems as if it doesn’t completely belong to a legitimately elected leader. Instead, the president is in thrall to a shadowy figure who pursues her private agenda.

Ms. Choi is something of an enigma who has rarely made public appearances. Only a handful of her pictures were in circulation before the scandal began. Her father, a cult leader, befriended Ms. Park while the president was still a young woman and ran a non-governmental organization whose titular head was Ms. Park. Chung Yoon-hoi, Ms. Choi’s husband whom she divorced in 2014, served as an aide to the president while Ms. Park was lawmaker.

Ms. Choi’s previously hidden power over the president suddenly came under intense scrutiny when investigations began into two charitable foundations, Mir and K-Sport, both created in the past one year. In the case of Mir, the Ministry of Culture and Sports approved its establishment overnight; normally it takes a month. The country’s top companies donated to them nearly 80 billion KRW through the Korea Federation of Industries, the leading business lobby.

The problem is that these entities were reportedly controlled by Ms. Choi, whose intimates filled the key positions. Some of the money the foundations raised was funneled to at least one company Ms. Choi owns with her daughter in Germany. (The latest tally from the German media is that Ms. Choi owns 14 ghost companies in that country.)This firm bought a hotel near Frankfurt, conveniently close to where Ms. Choi’s daughter, an equestrian gold medalist at the 2014 Incheon Asian Games, was training until recently and owns a house. Such tidbits of information about the family trickled down to the public in the preceding weeks until the cable TV channel JTBC found Ms. Choi’s tablet computer. In it were President Park’s speeches, received by Ms. Choi before the president officially unveiled them, with edits in red. It also contained other state documents. Naturally, every secret broke loose.

Can Foreigners Protest?

Every weekend, the Koreans who wanted President Park to resign attended the rally in Gwanghwamun with their candles. Now the question is, can foreigners join those rallies? According to the an article from The Korea Times, it is highly possible that foreigners are prohibited from attending rallies in Korea according to the Immigration Control Act. However, when I checked the official document’s chapter 17 of this Act in Korean, it did not specify on the definition of what kinds of political activities are prohibited. Therefore, the law depends on how people interpret it in their own ways. This can be a big issue because depending on the police's own decision, foreigners have the possibility of being arrested in Korea for expressing their political views and there are no clear suggested examples of activities that may cause severe punishments.

The Immigration Control Act is prohibiting the foreigner's freedom of expression, which is listed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 19, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Article 18 to 22. The quite ironic part is that the police have never arrested any foreigners in the current rally so far. Therefore, the Constitutional Court of Korea

has the responsibility of specifying the Act so that the foreigners do not have to be afraid of the legal repercussions. In a country that has currently 1,860,081 foreign residents, it is not realistic to limit anyone’s rights because of their nationalities. Depending on the interpretation, some may see the article from Korea Times as wrong and inaccurate in a way. Due to the impeachment of the president, some will predict that the protest have ended, but the truth is that the citizens are now heading to the Constitutional Court to bring out the final decision. As a student that had researched on the national and international law along with interviewing a few lawyers, it is highly probable that foreigners will not be arrested for joining the rally.