nuclear-news

South Korea deported anti nuclear Greenpeace staff

 Greenpeace deportation. Korea Herald, 3 April 12,  It was unnecessary and excessive for the immigration authorities to bar the entry of three Greenpeace staff at Incheon International Airport on Monday and send them back to Hong Kong. An Immigration Service officer said the three members of a four-man group were detained at the airport at the request of a relevant government office which cited “national interest reasons.”

The Greenpeace group consisted of Kumi Naidoo, international executive
director; Mario Damato, East Asia executive director; Fung Ka Keung,
regional development director for East Asia; and Rashid Kang, manager
for Greenpeace Seoul. Of them, only Naidoo was allowed into Seoul,
where he met Mayor Park Won-soon on the day of arrival. It is hard to
understand why the leader of the group was allowed to pass the gate
but his companions were kept at the airport. If the authorities found
reason that the group caused concerns for Korea’s national interest
and peace, as defined in Article 14 of the Immigration Law, the ban
should have been applied to all of them.

The explanation that Naidoo was allowed entry because of his prior
appointments with the Seoul mayor and Incheon Mayor Song Young-gil is
not acceptable. Before their arrival, Greenpeace had made it known
that the group was coming to Korea as part of its anti-nuclear
campaign. We see little difference between the numbers of one and four
and doubt that four men can pose any more significant challenge to the
national interest and peace here than one can.

Greenpeace opened its office in Seoul last August and its flagship
Rainbow Warrior has visited Incheon Port and the coastal locations of
Korea’s 21 nuclear power reactors to manifest its opposition to the
nation’s 31 percent dependence on nuclear energy which will be further
increased with the planned construction of 11 more reactors. It also
targets Korea’s export of nuclear energy technologies.

Since the disaster at the Fukushima power station in Japan last year,
global campaigns against nuclear energy have intensified. Korean
immigration authorities’ entry ban on some Greenpeace members only
highlighted its anti-nuclear campaign. They protested that the
deportation was “disproportionate, unjustified and immoral and does
not conform to the democratic values that Korea claims to espouse.”
… http://www.koreaherald.com/national/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20120403000383

April 4, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | civil liberties, South Korea