Arrest of Journalists Korea's Freedom of Speech Goes Back to 1980s All people should be equal before the law in an democracy, reardless of their profession or position in society. Jouralists, too, should b arrested if they violated laws by committing grave crimes, particularly when they are feared to flee or destroy evidence. That said, the prosecution's arrests of the union leader of all-news cable station YTN and a PD at network broadcaster MBC this week go way beyon our understanding. In the case of YTN union head, state prosecutors cited his interference in the execution of duty by the company president, who was appointed by President Lee Myung-bak and vehemently opposed by the unionized journalists. Viewed from an objective angle, this is at most about a difference of views on the relationship between a public media's independence and its ownership structure. Should this be reason enough for nabbing a journalist at his own home and in the presence of his family members on a Sunday morning? How could a unionleader flee just a day before starting a strike, or destroy evidence when the anagement had filmed all his public activities? It's almost deja vu of the 1970s and '80s when journalists were arrested or ismissed for doing what they were supposed to do; criticizing people in power. Such questions naturally lead to the suspicion that all this has something to do with the government's plan to amend the media law to allow big businesses and mass-circulation newspaper to jump into broadcasting business a few months later. The MBC PD's detention was due to his failure to obey a summons to investigate why and how he produced a program exaggerating the dangers of mad cow disease in relation to the re-import of U.S. beef last year. Even if tere were erroneous parts in the documentary, the discipline of such a mistake ought to be something other than putting him behind bars. We are not saying the present broadcasting system is the most fair and efficient, but this is not the way to rectify, let alone improve, it. Forcing all media outlets to toe the lone may be convenient for governing he country, but not just the nation's democracy but its overall requtation in international community will suffer irreparable damage, as shown by the denunciation by global media and human rights organizations. People still remember how the state-owned KBS distorted the New Year's Eve event last year, when it manipulated screens an sounds not to air an anit-government protest rally at the site. TV viewers are also witnessing that there is a noticeable decline in crtical comments about government's economic and other policies in MBC news programs in the wake of the government's strong-arm tatics against network stations. Reduced freedom of speech is in line with other setbacks in democracy since the crrent administration took office a year ago, such as the drastic organizational trimming of the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, an objcet of this country's pride in international society, as well as mass dismissal of progressive teachers. Samuel P. Huntington, the late U.S. political scientist, once said, "Any country that manages to attain trwo peaceful transfers of power since democratization cannot go back to a political state other than democracy. "If Huntington were still alive, hi might have inserted the word "full" before democracy, we are afraid.