At the conference speakers recalled that the security authorities unreasonably barred a Japanese peace activist from participating in an international seminar on peace held on Jeju Island last year.

They accused the authorities of detaining him for three days before forcibly sending him back to Japan.

They termed it illegal and a human rights abuse.

At the end of the conference its participants submitted a written statement signed by social activists in south Korea and Japan to the Human Rights Committee in protest against the authorities' suppression.