DongA Ilbo and the government are told to apologize for past civil rights violations

[Hankyoreh, October 30 2008]

Truth and Reconciliation Commission report finds DongA colluded with KCIA to fire journalists during Park Chung-hee era

In the latest of a series of findings, the official government Truth and Reconciliation Commission has determined that one of the more famous press suppression cases of the Park Chung-hee years, the “DongA Ilbo Advertising Coercion and Forced Layoff Case” during 1974 and 1975, was orchestrated by the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA, now known as the National Intelligence Service), and that the DongA Ilbo itself went along with what was unjust oppression by the Yusin regime, as it was called.

In a report issued October 29, the commission formally recommends that the state and the DongA Ilbo “apologize to those who were fired and make appropriate amends” for what the report defines as “a case in which the state power apparatus, in the form of the KCIA, engaged in serious civil rights violations.”