By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
The government disciplined 89 unionized teachers for leading the second round of a signature campaign denouncing the Lee Myung-bak administration, and filed complaints against them with the prosecution.
It asked city and regional education offices to dismiss Korean Teachers and Education Workers' Union (KTU)'s leader Jung Jin-hoo and 21 other teachers, and suspend 67.
"They violated the National Civil Servant Law," the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said in a statement. "We've decided to react sternly to their illegal collective action."
The latest move came after the progressive KTU announced a second joint declaration against the government on July 19 despite the government's warning that they would face disciplinary action.
A total of 28,711 teachers signed the statement, far more than the 17,000 who signed the first one, and their names were disclosed on the KTU's homepage.
The 89 members subject to the sanctions are mostly union leaders, who also led the first anti-government declaration.
The government said it was unable to take punitive action against rank-and-file members of the union who signed the declaration as it could not decipher the names posted on the Web site.
"The KTU disclosed the names of the teachers on its Web site in the form of a video clip. But it was difficult to read the names due to the low resolution of the footage," Lee Seong-hee of the ministry said.
In reaction, the union held a press conference at 3 p.m. Friday and claimed that the disciplinary action was an abuse of power.
They demanded the government guarantee the people's right to free expression and to rescind the measures taken against the teachers.
"How can we teach our students democracy and human rights when we are deprived of such things?" they said in a statement. "If the government wants communication with society, it should listen to us rather than forcing us to shut up."