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Staff Reporter
Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (KAIST) head Suh Nam-pyo is taking legal action against a student for libel.
A KAIST student wrote comments critical of Suh's policies on his blog and Web portal site Nov. 26 last year, prompting KAIST to sue him for defaming the school and President Suh.
The blogger, identified as Lee, 22, is a student in the Department of Industrial Design. A KAIST freshman in 2005, the student criticized the institution for revising regulations regarding the student presidency just before the election to prevent a candidate who was critical of the school from winning the vote.
He also criticized other school policies, such as imposing different tuition costs according to grades, penalties on students who study at the school after more than eight semesters, a dormitory facility shortage and a change in rules regarding re-taking courses and summer and winter sessions.
Suh is a former chief of MIT's mechanical engineering department and the 13th president of KAIST, appointed in 2006. The KAIST head has pushed many policies to reform the school, and this MIT-style reform shocked the local academic community.
The student wrote on his blog that he was accused of libel on Jan. 28.
``One thing is sure. At KAIST, an individual is not allowed to express one's thoughts freely on his or her private blog,'' Lee wrote. ``How did they find my Internet Protocol (IP) address? Considering the `Minerva' case and the Yongsan tragedy, I'm afraid of living in Korea.''
Netizens compare his situation to the arrest of Park Dae-sung, or Minerva, arguing it was unsound to sue a student for criticizing school policies.
On the student's blog, an Internet user named theliberal said it is absurd for Suh, an educator who has to guide students, to sue the pupil.
Another blogger, Flowiz, said Lee's posting was not something that should be indicted for libel.
Rep. Kim Young-jin of the opposition Democratic Party (DP), a member of the National Assembly Education, Science and Technology Committee, said, ``Suh was careless in suing the student, rather than listening to differing views on his policy.''
``The revision of student board election rules took place before the official schedule of the election, hence it didn't target a specific candidate. However, the student wrote a distorted story about the school on a Web portal site and we had to stop it to prevent more distortions,'' a KAIST official said. ``The school will withdraw the case as soon as the student deletes the posting and apologizes.''
meeyoo@koreatimes.co.kr
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