Last May 16-17, 2014, The May 18 Memorial Foundationhosted a successful annual event, the Gwangju Asia Forum under the theme of “Responsibilityof Civil Society towards Recovering Democracy and Justice“

             The Gwangju Asia Forum is a forum for exchanging and networking withdemocracy and human rights activists in Asia. It is a platform for discussingabout Asia’s human rights, peace and democracy and sharing alternative ideas ofmaking a better future.

Gwangju AsiaForum 2014

             Three workshops had been organized: The Solidarity for DemocratizationMovements in Asia (SDMA), Righting the Distortion of History and TraumaInternational Workshops.

SDMAWorkshop

TheSolidarity for Democratization Movements in Asia (SDMA)

             SDMAworkshop aims to work for the improvement of Asian human rights and democracythrough regional cooperation and working in solidarity. This years’ forum wasabout “International Human Rights Standards on Elections, Advocating for andmonitoring their Implementations”.

Righting theDistortion of History Workshop

Crisis forDemocracy and Distortion of History

             The Workshop for Righting theDistortion of History main objective was to analyze the motives of theright-wing organization to distort the history text books and the case of Kyohaksa distortion of Korean historyanalyzing and comparing the right-wing organizations of Korea and Japan andtrack their similarities. Another purpose was to find the solutions for thedistorted history of the May 18 democratic uprising and “Marching for Our Beloved” in order to realize the true democracy.

TraumaInternational Workshop

Responsibilitiesof the State and Citizens towards Justice and Restoration

             The Trauma International Workshopdiscussed about the state violence occurring at present compared with the stateviolence in the past. They also talked about the impact of social injustice uponsurvivors and the communities they belong to.

             Aside from the three significant workshops, The May 18 MemorialFoundation also hosted the East Asia Democracy, Peace and Human Rights NetworkAnnual Meeting together with other peace and human rights museums organizationsfrom East Asian countries  (Taiwan, Japanand Korea) and other human rights and memorial organizations in Korea. The meetingsought to strengthen the mutual cooperation between the participated East Asianmemorial institutions.

East AsiaDemocracy, Peace and Human Rights Network Annual Meeting