A Bit of A Worry

I'm always keen for a bit of international espionage (along with heists). So it was with some interest that I saw the Twitter go mental with reports of a North Korean spy posing as a defector and then sleeping with Army captains to obtain classified information.
Goodtimes!
This is the stuff movies are made of. And ya know...whattaya gonna do. The two Koreas are after all still technically at war, and it's not the first time North Korean spies have been found in the South.
Ho-hum.
It's just that this comes amongst a couple of other things that I have been hearing and reading around the place. The first is something of a backlash over what people have been constantly referring to as "The last decade of left wing (mis)rule" here in South Korea.
Being sufficiently long in the tooth to have experienced at least half of that decade I thought things went reasonably well. Indeed the current financial mess fiscal down-turn has only occurred since the current right wing administration took office. By way of example, five years ago I got close to NZD$1700 for the million Won I sent home. Now I get closer to NZD$1200. (Well at least I would if I sent money home anymore.)
But I'll call a down turn a down turn. Korea, like any country that is an exporter of shit people want will weather the current "crisis" with annual growth around 2% and a weak currency. (Not so good for going on holiday, but super awesome for exporters. See above.)
Yes. Amongst other things I am an armchair economist.
What scared me shitless What I found a bit of a worry earlier this evening was this story from The Korea Times detailing the arrest and questioning of Yonsei University Economics Professor Oh Se Cheol.
And why the arrest? Well you'd be forgiven for thinking he had plagiarised a paper or faked his credentials, but no. Oh was arrested for denouncing capitalism, an offense under the National Security law.
Let me say that another way.
An academic was arrested for saying that they disagreed with a certain academic theory.
Let me say that another way.
The dude was arrested for pretty much doing his job.

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said Wednesday it had arrested Oh Se-cheol, honorary professor at Yonsei University, and seven other Socialist Workers League of Korea members on Tuesday. The eight are now being questioned in Ogin-dong, central Seoul, over whether they have criticized capitalism and praised socialism as well as other acts considered benefiting the enemy - the North Korea.

No that's not me being a smart ass, The Korea Times called it The North Korea
Hahahahahaha! Too funny!
What's not funny is arresting academics. Even if they are members of some ridiculous Socialist Workers group. (You know who they are if you went to ANY university in the Western World.)
Arresting University professors is not cool.

NOT COOL!

Even more scary, the invocation of South Korea's problematic adolescence

Some are worrying whether these new moves will bring back the 'public security' era when police used excessive force against people under the name of 'keeping the peace' in the authoritarian era of the 1970s and 1980s.

Scary. And adding to my worry it seems that Prof. Oh is something of an ANTI-North Korean academic.

[sic]academia and others are criticizing the police's moves since Oh is well known for denouncing North Korea. Roh Hoe-chan of the minor New Progressive Party said, 'Oh and his groups constantly said the North has been polluted with other ideas in socialism, which all socialists should "refrain from following". Shouldn't the group be defined as anti - North Korean?'

You'd think so. In addition

'Oh criticized capitalism even under the military junta in the 1970s but was never prosecuted for violating the law. I do not understand the government's ethics on the issue,' Prof. Han Sang-hee of Konkuk University said calling for the government's respect on a variety of social ideas.

And I'm thinking if Prof. Oh got away with this kinda shit under Messrs. Park and Chun, then the current administration shouldn't have that much of an issue with it. (cf. reference to security era in the first quote above.)
(Rare) Kudos to The Korea Times for chucking the spy thing into the last paragraph, where it belongs, in the face of this academic being shut down for doing what academic types do.
In actual fact, I put to you this: The nutters had a go at bringing down Lee Myung Bak and didn't win. Perhaps the thinkers - like Profs. Oh and Han, and this lot - might have more success?