The National Election Commission hosted the “Agreement Ceremony for E-clean Election” on February 29^th at the NEC with attendance of representatives from political parties, Internet-related associations and major Internet portal sites in order to promote a sound atmosphere on the Internet for the 19^th National Assembly elections.

The secretary-general (Mr. Jong-Woo LEE) of the NEC stressed out in his opening remarks that close cooperation of related offices or groups is needed as well as active efforts of Internet users themselves in order to safeguard justice and freedom in election campaigns on the Internet space and build up sound cyber-political culture, because the cyberspace has a huge impact on elections as a platform for exchanging various opinions and information.

The participants adopted an agreement and pledged to fulfill what the agreement says through close cooperation. Main points of the agreement are as follows:

l  To lead the 19^th National Assembly elections to contribute to the national development and national integration

l  To provide objective and accurate information on policies and election pledges of political parties and candidates; and impartial report and news gathering

l  To create sound cyber-political culture in which candidates can compete with their policies; and encourage voters to participate in elections in the right way

l  To block the circulation of libel, false information and groundless suspicion

In addition, the NEC and participants decided to take joint measures against illegal election campaigns, as setting up a network between the NEC and hands-on workers of the participating groups to deal with unlawful posts (including false information, libel and malicious propaganda) on the Internet in a swift way.

●    Participating groups which signed the agreement: the NEC; Saenuri Party(New Frontier Party); Democratic Unity Party; Liberty Forward Party; Unified Progressive Party; Creative Korea Party; New Progressive Party; Korea Online Newspaper Association; Korea Internet Corporations Association; Korea Internet-media Journalist Association; Korea Internet Newspaper Association; Korea Internet Self-governance Organization; Daum Communications; SK Communications; NHN; KTH