Slashing Rights Panel

Seoul Should Not Run Counter to Global Trends

The world celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights last week: Has anyone noticed that here?

Ironically enough, it was the news of the government's plan to cut the National Human Rights Commission's organization to half that belatedly drew some people's attention to the 1948 U.N. declaration, the best and most comprehensive charter ever stipulating human's dignity and their equal and alienable rights.

The global villagers' concept of human rights has come a long way over the past century from mere protection from persecution to a ban on discrimination and to rights to lead lives worthy of humans, including economically ― from basic freedom to social rights in other words.

By most standards, Korea's progress has been frustratingly slow even under liberal governments, but the nation now seems to be going not forward but backward, even nullifying much of the accomplishment over the past decade or so.

The Lee Myung-bak administration is moving, for instance, to toughen the anti-communist law, which deprives even the descendants of ex-communists the most basic rights and sharply enhances the operations of the spy agency to this end.

Alarmed by citizens' power during the candlelight vigils earlier the year, Seoul is drastically limiting the people's rights for assembly and demonstration, while sharply increasing budgets for law enforcement outlays, including the police's ``riot clampdown gear," in the name of maintaining law and order. It must be no coincidence the government's top administrative watchdog launched audits into the rights panel soon after it pointed out brutal police crackdowns of candlelit protesters.

A top Cheong Wa Dae official recently said there might be massive lay-offs and small- business bankruptcies next spring, adding if the people attribute them to structural problems, they could pose threats to the government and establishment. More conservative groups described these in the more provocative expression of ``frantic revolts."

While most advanced countries are racking their brains to expand social safety networks to protect the economic underdogs amid a global recession ― demanding minimally decent lives belongs to human rights ― should this government be preparing to crack down on grassroots' outcries for help? Seoul should understand what the riots that started in Greece and are spreading to the rest of Europe mean

Already, Korea is ranked 30th out of 30 OECD countries in guaranteeing social rights, or rights to lead ``human" lives. The nation has nowhere to fall further. The human rights commission is not without problems in terms of ideological prejudice and scope of activities, but these should be solved by beefing up ― not trimming down ― its organization currently consisted of about 200 staff members. In America, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) alone hires 1,500 officials and there are many other human rights-related agencies.

A country's dignity and status is measured more by its contribution to international society and its protection of human rights than by its per capita income or economic growth.