UNABATED RESISTANCE FLAMES
Unabated Resistance Flames
The mass candlelit demos of the south Korean students demanding the reduction of registration fee by half since late March now gains further momentum amid solidarity of different circles. A people's rally for the reduction of registration fee by half took place at Cheonggye Plaza in Seoul on September 29 under the co-sponsorship of opposition parties and the People's Headquarters for Halved Registration Fee grouping some 700 students, civic and student parents’ organizations. At the rally attended by more than 3,000 students and citizens the participants stressed that the government should take measures to solve the registration fee issue which became insolvable any further. The South Korean Federation of University Students in the 21st Century asserted in a statement released that day that the “government” should relieve all students who failed to register for not being able to afford the fee, denouncing the regime’s policy for reducing the registration fee as a deceitful one disregarding the people's demand for halved fee. After the candlelit rally, the participants staged a demo chanting such slogans as “Implement the halved registration fee” and “Don’t kill the students any longer”. Much perplexed by the fighting enthusiasm of the people the authorities mobilized 6,000-odd policemen of 78 companies to suppress them firing water cannons and arrested some 50 students. However, the struggle continued to the next day. On the same day such struggles for halved registration fee also took place all at once in ten-odd areas including Busan, Ulsan, Daegu, Chuncheon and Daejeon. At present, the students who were out of university for not paying the fee accounted for 26.9% of all students and the students who owe debts are as many as 50.9%. For the skyrocketing registration fee the students give up studying and undertake drudgery and, even worse, increasing number of students and their parents commit suicide. So without terminating the anti-popular misrule of the south Korean authorities the registration fee issue cannot be settled. South Korean students and people will smash the anti-popular policies of the south Korean government with the resistance flames. |