SEOUL, June 9 (Xinhua) -- A worker and labor activist, who set himself on fire late last month protesting the government's decision to lift bans on U.S. beef imports, died in hospital on Monday, his family said.

    Despite two skin grafts and intensive hospital care over the past 16 days, Lee Byeong-ryeol died of septic shock, a condition that leads to low blood pressure and low blood flow due to overwhelming infection, said Lee's brother Lee Yong-gi.

    Lee poured flammable liquid over his body and immolated himself during a mass protest in front of a department store in the southern city of Jeonju on May 25, Yonhap news agency reported.

    In his suicide note written several days before, he said: "We have to take lead," and expressed hope that labor leaders would actively get involved in the beef protest that was initially led by teenage students.

    After losing his job as a newspaper deliveryman following a traffic accident in 2005, Lee joined the progressive Democratic Labor Party and has since participated in a variety of civic and labor protests, his family members said.

    "When we came to see him yesterday, my brother seemed to know the family and we had hope," Lee Yong-gi said. "The government caused this by pushing the policy regardless of what people think."

    Another protester who set himself on fire was being treated in the same hospital. However, the injuries of Kim Gyeong-cheol, a former cattle farmer who has recently lost his job, were not life-threatening, labor activists said.

    Public protests showed no sign of abating despite the government's repeated assurances that U.S. beef from older cattle will not be imported to Korea. Mad cow disease has generally been discovered in cattle older than 30 months.

    Critics say the verbal assurances alone cannot guard Koreans against concerns of mad cow disease, and call for a written, stricter age ban through a renegotiation.

    In mid-April, Seoul agreed to resume imports of U.S. beef from cattle of all ages while banning only specified risk materials, such as tongues, brains and vertebrae marrow from cattle older than 30 months.