Independence Fighters to Regain Nationality
By Kim Tae-jong
Staff Reporter
The Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs (MPVA) will propose a bill to allow some 200 independence fighters including Shin Chae-ho, Lee Sang-ryong, Hong Beom-do, Lee Sang-seol and Kim Gyu-sik to regain their Korean citizenship.
They fought for the independence of Korea from Japanese colonial rule (1910~1945) but they have been stateless for about 60 years. The ironic situation took place because they refused to accept the Japanese family registration system, which later served as the basic data on which the newborn Korean government gave citizenship to its people when Japanese rule ended.
Consequently, most of the people who were not registered in the system were unable to obtain Korean citizenship at that time. The proposed bill aims to help them reinstate their Korean citizenship as a move to recognize their patriotism, an MPVA official said.
The move also coincides with a change in the family registration system through a revised law that came into effect this year.
Even after the country gained independence, Koreans had long used a Japanese male-oriented family register system, called ``hoju.'' Each family member had to be registered in the ``hojeok,'' which recorded marriages, births, deaths, adoptions and divorces under the name of the paternal family head.
But from this year, hojeok was replaced by ``individual family records.''
The bill was first proposed in 2005. Thirty-eight lawmakers ― proponents of the bill ― said those who died before the foundation of the Korean government in 1945 should be regarded as citizens.