On the 17th of March 1975, a tragedy unprecedented in the history of the world media took place at the Dong-A Ilbo office building located at the intersection of Gwanghwamun, Seoul. About 130 people, including Dong-A Ilbo, Shin Dong-A, Women Dong-A, and Press, and Dong-A Broadcasting PDs, announcers, and technologists, who were struggling at the editorial office on the 3rd floor and the broadcasting station on the 4th floor were pushed out of the company in surprise by unidentified gangsters. It was later apparent that this was the’operation’ of the Dong-A Ilbo’s actual owner Kim Sang-man (the eldest son of Kim Seong-soo) and the Park Jeong-hee regime. The background is as follows. On May 16, 1961, Park Jeong-hee (the then general manager), who drove out the government of the people’s election in a military coup and initiated a devastating’military dictatorship’, was screamed by the bullet of Kim Jae-gyu, head of the Central Intelligence Agency, for 18 years. It seemed like an’absolute monarch’ who seemed to dominate Korean society for over a period of time. However, Park Jeong-hee’s seat of power, which looked like Cheol Ongseong, began to crack slowly from 1974. This is because the youth and student activist rights and the forces of democratization in the past were in strong solidarity and challenged him. At one part of the regiment were young journalists of the Dong-A Ilbo. They caused’events’ that could not be imagined at the time. On March 10 of that year, the first labor union in the history of the Korean media was formed (an external union that the city of Seoul refused to report), and on October 24, the’Declaration of Free Press Practice’ was announced. The declaration contained this. “We declare that the way to overcome the unprecedented difficulty facing our society today lies in the free activities of the press. It declares that free press, which is a basic social function for maintaining a democratic society and developing a free state, cannot be suppressed under any pretext and that no one can interfere. (···) Therefore, we declare that we will do our best to practice free press, which is the basic requirement for the existence of a free democratic society, without giving in to any pressure against the free press, and with our passionate hearts, we make the following resolution. 1. We strongly exclude any external interference in newspapers, broadcasts and magazines with our united unity. 1. Strictly denied access to personnel. 1. We strongly reject the illegal arrest of journalists.” At that time, Mr. Luo-Sik Lu was a’old man PD’ as the deputy head of the Dong-A Broadcasting Production Department. On March 17, 1975, when reporters, PDs, and technologists were forcibly deported from the Dong-A Ilbo, Yun voluntarily joined the ranks, very rarely as an executive. The organization formed at that time was the Dong-A Free Press Protection Fight Committee (Dong-A Two Committee). Since then, for 46 years, Mr. Yoon worked hard as the’Chief Chief Member’ of the Dong-A Two Committee. It was at the end of 1978 that Yun experienced the most severe hardships during her Dong-A2W activities. Dong-A Tuwi distributed them at a year-end meeting with democrats in the past, and he became an accomplice with his junior, Ki-joong Lee, and sexual reservations, and was arrested on charges of violating Emergency Measure 9. He recorded the situation at the time in an article titled’The wedding of a daughter beaten in prison’ (in). “January 1979 was exceptionally cold. I can’t forget a week at the Central Police Station, who was arrested and confined under investigation. Does Heaven give me this ordeal to entrust me? When I thought of what had happened or my family, I was upset and frustrated. It was the lesson of my deceased father’s life that held my heart. My father spent two times in jail while fighting Japan for the independence of the country. In addition, after liberation, he was sacrificed while fighting in North Korea where the communist regime was established to prevent the division of the nation. My father, who thought you were right and threw your body into what you made up your mind. He has always been the star to guide me when I face challenges and when my decisions are required.” Like his father, Luo-Sik Lu, like his father, always’became a guiding star’ for the people of East Asia whenever they had to make a decision. But He is no longer with us. But we do believe. Yun, a devout Christian believer, will always be the’star that guides us’ in’the kingdom of heaven’.
Kim Jong-cheol, former chairman of the East Asian Free Press Protection Fight Committee