A press release read out at the conference accused the Lee group of enforcing harsh dictatorship in a bid to stamp out Jongyojo in the wake of the publication of the "teachers' declaration for democracy".

The press release said:

The authorities are driving riff-raffs to threaten and appease the teachers not to sign the declarations. They are even threatening them that they would label those teachers manufacturing and carrying signature papers and rendering cooperation to them as participants in the movement.

The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology issued an instruction that official papers defining the movement of the teachers as "illegal" be sent to the schools to hold in check the movement.

The authorities are conducting an investigation into all the teachers of Jongyojo, blustering that they would confirm those who participated in the action of issuing the first declaration on the situation. They went the lengths of calling out even the teachers giving lessons for questioning.

Such reckless acts are human rights abuses and unimaginably shameless actions. Jongyojo would brave any crackdown in order to protect the legitimate rights of the teachers and achieve social democracy.