Public suicides attests to labor unrest in South Korea
Four South Korean labor activists have killed themselves since late September, and a fifth is lying near death in the burn unit of a hospital. Four foreign workers also have committed suicide this month in protest of South Korean labor policies.
In September, a South Korean farmer stabbed himself to death at a World Trade Organization conference in Cancun, Mexico.
These spectacularly public suicides, along with increasingly disruptive protests on the streets, are an unmistakable sign of growing labor unrest in South Korea.