South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, a devout Christian, yesterday apologized to the nation’s Buddhists following nationwide protests against alleged religious bias by his administration.
Lee was speaking at a Cabinet meeting which approved regulations banning religious discrimination by public servants.
“It is deeply regrettable that some government officials offended the Buddhist community — even if they did not not mean to — with such words and behavior as could cause misunderstanding about a religious bias,” he said.
Leaders of the country’s 10 million Buddhists — outnumbered by 13.7 million Christians — had threatened more mass protests unless Lee apologized.
The largest Buddhist order, the Jogye, said his remarks represented “a more sincere attitude” by the government. But it repeated demands for the sacking of the national police chief over an alleged insult to its head monk, Jigwan.
The Buddhist protests, rare in a country that guarantees freedom of religion, followed months of street rallies against US beef imports that rocked Lee’s administration.
Buddhists have been uneasy over what they see as a Christian bias since Lee, a Presbyterian church elder, came to power on Feb. 25.
The Jogye lists 23 cases of alleged favoritism, including the appointments of Protestants to major government posts.
An online map published by two ministries, showing Seoul’s churches but not major Buddhist temples, also sparked anger.
In early July seven activists wanted by police following the beef protests took refuge in Seoul’s Jogyesa temple. Tensions grew in late July when police stopped a car carrying Jigwan outside the temple and searched the trunk.
Police chief Eo Cheong-soo, himself a Christian, apologized and disciplined two senior officers. But Buddhists accused police of treating the head monk like a criminal and called for Eo’s resignation.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.