CANADIANS CAUGHT IN DRUG CRACKDOWN, NOT JOB SCAM

Nine young Canadians, many of them ESL teachers, are in prison in
South Korea facing drug-related charges and some are keeping their
situation secret, except from Foreign Affairs officials, to prevent
their parents from finding out.

Five Canadians were arrested just last week, three of them in the
small industrial city of Gumi.

The flurry of arrests is a reflection of enforcement of a
"zero-tolerance" drug policy rather than language schools framing
foreigners to escape salary payments, Foreign Affairs spokesman
Reynald Doiron said yesterday.

He said all of the detained Canadians are entitled under privacy law
to request that no information about their situation goes to third
parties, which includes their parents.

He made the comments in wake of concerns expressed publicly by Joan
Hunt, an Ottawa nurse, about Noah Pawlowski, a 22-year-old friend of
her daughter, who also teaches English as a Second Language in Korea.

Mr. Pawlowski was arrested and imprisoned just moments after signing
for a package that was not addressed to him at the school where he was
on his last week of fulfilling a one-year contract teaching English as
a Second Language in Daegu. The package allegedly contained drugs.

Ms. Hunt's good intentions of helping the young man and warning other
young teachers of perils in South Korea were not welcome by a Canadian
relative of Mr. Pawlowski.

His cousin, Laura Clarke of Victoria, B.C., said she objected to Ms.
Hunt suggesting he had little family support and may have been
intimidated into keeping his situation secret. Ms. Clarke said in a
telephone interview the young man did not want any information
released, he does get letters from home, has been visited by close
friends and he is in frequent contact with Canadian consular
officials.

"We've been dealing with this from day one; he has plenty of support
from here," said an angry Ms. Clarke. "He wanted things kept quiet.
He's got to come home to everybody knowing what is going on."

"All we know is he received a parcel that was not addressed to him,"
Ms. Clarke added. "We're really hopeful that he will be pardoned and
deported."

Consular officials are scheduled to visit Mr. Pawlowski today at the
detention centre for the second time since his arrest in late
September. His trial date is Nov. 4.

Ms. Hunt had expressed concerns that Mr. Pawlowski may have been
framed so that the school could escape paying his final salary, bonus
and airfare home.

Ms. Hunt had good intentions in bringing the young man's case to
light, as she was worried he had been intimidated into keeping his
situation secret, and had no family support that her daughter knew
of.

"If it was my child, I would want people fighting for my child," Ms.
Hunt said. She was delighted to discover yesterday that his family
knows of his situation and is in contact with consular officials.

Mr. Doiron said three young Canadians, a women and two men, all in
their 20s, were arrested at a bar in Gumi last Friday, Oct. 24, and
charged with possession of drugs and smoking hashish in a bar.

The previous day, Oct. 23, two Canadians were arrested in Seoul for
allegedly purchasing drugs. One arrest of a Canadian with large
quantities of ecstasy and LSD took place last February. Others facing
drug-related charges have been in detention since Nov. 21, 2002 and
July 12, 2003.

"The rumour under which you could be framed does not correspond to our
experience in other comparable cases and it would be certainly
contrary to the best of our knowledge of Korean culture about their
way of doing things, not only on drug-related charges but in the way
police behave," Mr. Doiron said.

"It's a zero-tolerance (anti-drug) policy. ... From a strict legal
point of view, judicial point of view and government's response, it's
a zero-tolerance policy."

Mr. Doiron noted that Foreign Affairs warns Canadians of the
zero-tolerance policy on its website. He said South Korea provides due
process of law in the courts.