lead up
- Dec. 1979: General Chun Doo-hwan coup
- Arrests top military commander
- Martial Law
- Spring 1980: “Seoul Spring” demonstrations & protests
- Desires end of Chun’s rule and real democracy
- 5/15/1980: Seoul Station protests (~100,000 students)
- 5/17/1980: expands martial law and arrests Kim Dae Jung (opposition leader)
- 5/18/1980: Gwangju “uprising” events
- Why students?
- Teaching ideal of democracy but it’s not that in practice
aftermath and suppression
- Jun. 1980: arrest politicians, pastors, journalists, students (329)
- July 1980: purge (7386)
- Public officials
- Corporate employees
- Teachers
- Journalists “deficient in anticommunism”
- August 1980 – “Hooligans and gangsters” (16,599)
- Many sent to education camps or labor camps
- Student and labor activists included
- Feb. 1981: more purges (37k)
- Journalists, students, teachers, labor organizers, civil servants
- Sent to “purification camps”
- Beatings
- Starvation
- Small-group criticism
- Self-criticism meetings
- Forced propaganda
- Reduced voices of opposition
suppressive laws
- Oct. 1980: National Assembly and political parties dissolved
- Replaced with Legislative Council for National security
- Political Climate Renovation Law
- Politicians who doubted government policies banned
- Blacklists of politicians and intellectuals
- Dec. 1980: Basic Press Law
- Censorship
- Daily “press guidelines”
- e.g. Label protestors as “procommunist”
- Labor laws preventing “third party intervention”
- Banned Federation of Korean Trade Unions and industry-level unions
- Suppression of Union activity
- Often involved with democracy movements
- Forced to join company-controlled labor management councils