students’ rights ordinance of Gyeongsangnam-do after going through discussions with the civil
society on September 11, 2018, but faced resistance from the Christianity and an alliance of
opposing parties. After completing an opinion-collection process, the superintendent of
education published a revised draft in March 14, 2019, and submitted the draft to the provincial
assembly of Gyeongsangnam-do. Then, the superintendents of education in Seoul, Gyeonggido, Gwangju and Jeollabuk-do where a students’ rights ordinance was already in force released
a statement in support of the formulation of the students’ rights ordnance of Gyeongsangnamdo and many civic organizations across the nation also expressed their support for the
ordinance. In addition, the NHRCK announced the Chairperson’s statement to call for the
legislation of the ordinance in May 2019.
56.
However, the standing committee of the provincial assembly in Gyeongsangnam-do
voted against the draft, and the draft was automatically discarded with the closing of the
plenary session of the provincial assembly on July 19, 2019. In spite of the education
superintendent’s positive drive for the formulation of a students’ rights ordinance and the strong
support from ‘the candle-light civil alliance for the formulation of the students’ rights ordinance
of Gyeongsangnam-do’ which consists of about 100 civic organizations, the draft was not even
discussed in the provincial assembly. The opposing parties led by the Christianity argued that
the ordinance would spread homosexuality among the students and cause sexual immorality
and lower educational performance to the students. They tried to instigate opposition to the
students’ rights ordinance and expressed their extreme opposition, by making a forced entry to
the location of public hearing, putting up a tent for protest in front of the provincial assembly
building, handing out flyers of fake news and pressuring provincial legislators.
57.
The Gyeongsangnam-do Office of Education attempted to formulate a students’ rights
ordinance on 3 occasions over the 10 years’ period starting from 2009 (proposed by,
respectively, the legislators in 2009, a group of residents in 2012 and the superintendent of
education in 2018), but these attempts came to naught. In this course, a succession of fake news
was generated, based on the distorted information from some opposing groups and the hatred
towards and discrimination against sexual minorities.
58.
Furthermore, in Ulsan City, the drafts of “the ordinance on juvenile assembly
establishment and support”, “the ordinance to promote democracy and citizenship education in
school” and “the ordinance to promote labor rights education for juveniles”, all of which are
related to juveniles’ participation and human rights education and have been approved without
a hitch in other cities and provinces, were called off after they had been submitted to the city
assembly, due to the pressure upon the legislators, the physical obstruction of public
discussions and the opposing opinions built on fake news. In particular, some specific groups,
including the one from the Christianity, incited hatred and discrimination in the course of such
opposition, trying to organize and empower themselves.
59.
The NHRCK launched a “task force team to address hatred and discrimination” in
February 2019 which has made efforts to shape an active counterculture, including by holding
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