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- WORLD, Page 23World NotesSOUTH KOREAThe Charge Is Silence
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- Opposition leader Kim Dae Jung has spent seven of his 63
- years in prison, and now the government hopes to lock him up
- again. Kim and two other members of his Party for Peace and
- Democracy were indicted last week for violating
- national-security and currency-control laws. According to the
- charges, they failed to report that one of their party
- colleagues, Suh Kyung Won, visited North Korea last year in
- violation of the ban on unauthorized contacts with the
- Communists. Kim, twice a presidential candidate, is also
- accused of failing to report that he accepted $10,000 Suh was
- given in Pyongyang.
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- The charges are "deliberate political persecution," says
- Kim. He knew nothing about the trip, he insists, until just
- before Suh was arrested last June. "I have nothing to fear," he
- told his supporters. But if he is convicted, Kim could spend up
- to 15 years behind bars.
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