Let me just get right to the point this time. This is utter bullshit:
"Foreigners may face deportation or fines if they volunteer at orphanages or organize performances without reporting them to the authorities.
The interpretation came from Joo Jae-bong, an official at the Ministry of Justice. He said there should be no problem with joining a poetry club but that volunteer activites should be registered with the ministry."
Wait a minute. How on God's green earth do volunteer activities – or any other activity that doesn't involve taking money – get interpreted in any way, shape, or form as violating laws regulating the types of work one does? Is there a "free" society in the world that limits the activities of legal aliens and residents in their free time as well?
These are legitimate questions that I'd love to have answered, because to my mind, as untrained in the law as it may be, I don't see how any government has the right to monitor the activities of anyone – citizen or not – in their free time.
So if I volunteer at an orphanage, I have to register somewhere? Or speak at a poetry reading? Or write an op-ed piece for Seoul Magazine? What if I take some pictures and publish them on my blog? Is that an "activity?" What if I have an exhibit? Make a podcast? So if I record something in the privacy of my own home, it that OK? Or does it become illegal if I upload it to the web? Or maybe it becomes illicit only if I invite a friend to listen to it in person. Or would it be two? Four? Sixteen?
What kind of employment law applies to all activities in our lives, including our free time? And what are the legal definitions here? How many people? In what kind of venue? What forms of media? How can a law so vague actually be expected to exist.
This is just carte blanche to muzzle anyone foreign who tries to have a voice. The law won't be enforced – because it is impossible and impractical to enforce – except in cases in which the government decides someone has said something it doesn't like. 99.9% of the time, nothing will happen to poetry performances and volunteers in orphanages. But you say something bad about Korea – whoosh! You might get deported.
That's the point.
Here's the question: is maintaining a blog something I have to "register?" What the hell kind of Pak Chung Hee, paranoid, police state bullshit is this?
And I'm not saying this out of self-interest. I have an F-4 (the "kyopo" visa") and can do whatever the hell I want – I think – and there are no limits on me in terms of work, owning land, or even starting a business.
But this is out of hand.
I think this is a chilling precedent. I wonder if any of our embassies might have anything to say about this?
