A court in Seoul found 260 out of 272 teachers and public servants guilty of making donations to the opposition Democratic Labour Party. In January, a court fined 134 teachers and government employees the sum of 300,000 to 500,000 Won (USD269 to USD449) for paying membership dues and/or giving donations to the Democratic Labour Party (DLP). Prosecutors were asking for much more including jail terms. The court however ruled that the teachers were innocent of the charges of joining a political party – contrary to Korean law forbidding teachers from joining political parties.
A local court also ordered a conservative parents’ group to pay compensation to members of a progressive teachers’ union for posting a list of 15,000 teachers of the Korean Teachers and Education Workers’ Union (KTU) on its website in July 2010, disclosing their names and which school they worked at. The court said the disclosure of the names and other information of the unionised teachers violated their privacy rights.
In February, a group of teachers asked the Constitutional Court to review the law that bans teachers from joining political activities. The three teachers, members of the Korean Teachers and Education Workers’ Union, were suspended for three months as punishment for voicing their political views, after being convicted by a local court for leading an anti-government campaign over its education policies.