Opposition Demands PPP Lawmaker Scrap Gwangju Forum With Disputed Group in South Korea

South Korean opposition parties are demanding that ruling People Power Party lawmaker Lee Jin-sook immediately cancel a forum on the 1980 Gwangju pro-democracy uprising, which she plans to hold with a group that has made controversial claims about the historical event. Noh Hye-ryeong, spokesperson for the progressive Justice Party, said in a briefing on Tuesday that it is "heartbreaking" that a group with "anti-historical and anti-social views" is holding a forum that undermines the spirit of the Gwangju uprising, and urged Lee to halt the event immediately. The forum, titled "Academic Forum on May 18 from a Liberal Democratic Perspective, is scheduled for Wednesday at the National Assembly Library auditorium.

It is being co-organized by the New History National Movement, a group led by Lee Young-hoon, a former Seoul National University professor associated with the New Right movement. The group has argued that it is "not appropriate to define the Gwangju democratization movement as a massacre planned by state violence.