By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter

A group of professors opposing President Lee Myung-bak's cross-country canal project condemned the government for putting what they call clandestine censorship on anti-canal campaigners.

The group, temporarily named ``Professors' Union Opposing Cross-Canal Project,'' released a statement Sunday calling on the government to halt the controversial inquiry into academics' political leanings.

The statement came after a series of reports from its members that police officers and even state-backed spy agency members questioned them over the organization.

In the statement, professors said ``Since March 25 when the organization was launched, police and the National Intelligence Service (NIS) have contacted professors championing anti-canal movements to verify their political tendencies and achieve information regarding the union. This practice was a means widely used in the 1980s when the peninsula was under the iron-fist rule of dictators to suppress scholars resisting the government's policies.''

The statement said that the questionable acts were made to restrict scholar's freedom of study and expression. ``We urge the government to stop the undesirable research and apologize to affected professors.''

Noting that the professors' union was made to study the project from economic, environmental and technical perspectives, the statement said ``Our study is not political. We are studying the controversial waterway project strictly to prevent it from being managed in cursory manner.''

The Union, launched on March 25, is comprised of more than 2,500 professors from 115 universities nationwide.

According to the body, a total of 11 professors at eight universities ― Seoul National, Chungnam National, Catholic, Hannam, Mokwon, Andong National, Korea Maritime, and Chungbuk National Universities ― have reported that police and NIS officers have questioned them over their thoughts regarding the canal project and related information.

The union's members claim that a series of political inquiries were made and influential politicians might be masterminding the censorship.

``Police raided several professors' offices at the same time. This nationwide and sudden censorship can't be made without direction from influential figures,'' Cho Bock-hyun, the Union's chief administrator, told The Korea Times.

Choi Young-chan, a professor at Seoul National University (SNU)'s college of agriculture & life science, said ``Police officers visited my office without prior notice. They questioned me over the group's members and characteristics. I also received a phone call from one who introduced himself as an NIS official.''

Reportedly, Kim Jong-wook, a professor at SNU's department of geography education, has undergone police inquiries three times.

Political parties also criticized that such practices are an infringement of professors' freedom of study and expression. ``We believe presidential aides are deeply involved in the censorship,'' said Yoo Jong-pil, spokesman for the United Democratic Party.

The Union's spokesman said they plan to have a meeting on April 4 to decide on countermeasures against the censorship.

pss@koreatimes.co.kr