ID :
182637
Tue, 05/17/2011 - 10:29
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://oananews.org//node/182637
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Korean independence fighter's family sues government
SEOUL, May 17 (Yonhap) -- The family of a Korean independence fighter has filed a lawsuit against a recent government decision to cancel its posthumous honor of him as a man of merit, court officials said Tuesday.
The government last month canceled its recognition of 19 people as men of merit for their contributions to Korean independence during the 1910-45 Japanese colonial rule, and withdrew their medals and decorations after their pro-Japanese activities were later discovered. Kim Hong-ryang (1885-1950), the late father of the family, was among them.
Kim's son filed the suit against the state, claiming that it was unjust for the government to cancel the decoration just because his father's name was included on a list of pro-Japanese collaborators, according to the officials at the Seoul Administrative Court.
It marked the first legal measure taken by the family of a former Korean independence activist against the government's decision.
In 2009, the private Institute for Research in Collaborationist Activities and a group of scholars published a biographical encyclopedia bearing the names of 4,389 people who they say collaborated with colonial Japan.
"The national decoration law allows the government to cancel its conferment only if one's contribution has officially been proven false. But the list does not say that their contributions were false so the government's cancellation does not meet the legal requirement," said Kim Dai-young, the son, who formerly served as vice construction minister.
The list lacks objectivity because it's based on two newspapers that represented the views of the Japanese colonizers, he claimed.
He also said that his father was imprisoned for collecting funds for the independent movement and had never voluntarily collaborated with Japan.
brk@yna.co.kr