Political Prisoners in South Korea

General description

Political prisoners are those imprisoned for their political beliefs or actions seen as a threat to the party in power. Many refer to political prisoners in South Korea as prisoners of conscience because they refuse to renounce their alleged communist beliefs even under extreme torture in investigation institutions and prisons.. Prisoners who refuse to renounce allegiance are not eligible for early release by the Parole Examination Board and serve anywhere from 15 years to life. South Korean protesters demand the release of political prisoners whom they believe did not have a fair trial or access to a lawyer. Protests to free political prisoners have taken place throughout South Korea.

Number of South Korean detainees for National Security Law violations

While it is difficult to estimate the exact number of political prisoners in South Korea because of the frequent arrests and releases, below are some estimates provided for the years 1992-1996.

Year:

1992-305

1993-122

1994-367

1995-246

1996-201

Prison Conditions

Political prisoners suffer ongoing abuse and torture. Following the death of Park Chong-chol, a student activist in 1987, reports of torture momentarily decreased .

Pre 1950s

Following the end of Japanese colonialism, World War 2 and the beginning of the Cold War in 1945, Korea was divided between North and South. While North Korea aligned itself with the USSR and embraced a communist regime, South Korea aligned itself with the U.S. and the United Nations forming the Democratic People Republic of Korea. Fear of communist invasion and a desire to suppress the left-wing movement led to the implementation of the 1948 National Security Act by the Rhee Syung-man government.

National Security Act

The National Security Act criminalized sympathy for North Korea and communism, joining or creating anti-state organizations, and the printing, distributing, or owning of “anti government material” in the name of national security. The National Security Act has been widely criticized by human rights organizations for its extreme punishments ranging from long prison sentences to execution. In 1995, Amnesty International urged South Korean government to amend the National Security Act, claiming that the “restriction on freedom of expression and association in the National Security Law go far beyond those necessitated by the preservation of national security. Despite criticism, the South Korean government is adamant on maintaining the National Security Act. The South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman spoke against critiques stating the “National Security Law is a minimum necessary legal device to protect our free democratic system in a circumstance where South and North Korea remained pitted against each other.” The constitutionality of the National Security Act was challenged in 1990 in the Korean Constitution Court. While the court acknowledged some of the National Security Act's unconstitutional elements, the NSL itself was not deemed unconstitutional.

1950s-1960s

By 1950, the Rhee administration had 30,000 alleged communists jailed and had another 300,000 suspected sympathizers enrolled in a re-education movement known as the Bodo League. By 1953, South Korea began imprisoning conscientious objectors to military service, which disproportionately affected Jehovah's Witnesses. Targeting of advocates for peaceful unification by the National Security Act and the Rhee government, which ruled South Korea from 1948-1960, as well as the execution of Cho Bong-Ahm, a social democrat presidential candidate and break up of his Progressive Party in 1958 further indicated the strong anti-North and anti-communist sentiments of this period.

The collapse of the Rhee government during the 1960 Student Revolution was a result of the military coup led by General Park Chung-Hee

In 1969 the Ministry of Justice classified political and non-political prisoners into four classes; “Class A includes the prisoners who can be rehabilitated; Class B includes the prisoners whose rehabilitation is considered difficult; Class C includes prisoners whose rehabilitation is deemed very difficult, including recidivists and "prisoners of conviction" who have "converted." "Prisoners of conviction" who have not "converted" belong to Class D and are not entitled to the benefits granted in the other classes.” In order for political prisoners to be released and show “conversion” they were required to write a testimony confessing their communist beliefs while promising to abandon these beliefs.

1970s-1980s

Anti-government student protests in the 1970s called for an end to Park Chung-hee’s authoritarian state and the Yusin Constitution. Student activists and those accused of being involved in the Inhyeok-dang (People’s Revolutionary Party or PRP) were arrested for allegedly working with North Korea in order to overthrow the South Korean regime. While the PRP was later found to be a fabrication of Korea’s Central Intelligence Agency, many were tortured into confessing involvement and later executed or sentenced to 15 years in prison.

1979 marked the end of the Park Chung-Hee regime and the beginning of the Chun Doo-hwan regime which continued until the June Struggle against the regime in 1987. Under Chun Doo-hwan, like under Park Chung-Hee, student activists, democrats and labor activists were “blacklisted, detained and imprisoned being defined as pro-communist, anti-state figures under the National Security Law.” While the June Struggle was successful in lifting some civil rights restrictions on ex-political prisoners and in securing the release of several hundred prisoners, the government’s standards for release remained ambiguous and the government maintained the power to imprison activists. In 1987, during the Roh Tae-woo regime, a church-based human rights organization estimated 1,000 political prisoners remained incarcerated.

1990s-2000s Prisoner release protests

The 1990s was the beginning of a pro-democracy movement that brought back negative public sentiment against military dictatorship and challenged the legitimacy of the anti-communist threat and the National Security Law, making political prisoners the public symbols of the pro-democracy movement. In 1998, ex-political prisoner and pro-decocracy fighter Kim Dae-jung took office. South Koreans hoped president Kim Dae-jung would grant amnesty for political prisoners. In his first year, president Kim Dae-jung pardoned over 5 million crimes and misdemeanors and freed political prisoners even without renouncing their ideological views.

Many South Korean religious and human rights organization believe political prisoners have been unjustly detained and call for their release as well as an end to the National Security Act which they believe restricts human rights. Minkhayup is a Human Rights group made up of political prisoners families, particularly mothers of prisoners, who seek freedom and justice for those tortured and killed while imprisoned. 2005 marked the 20th year of the groups foundation which launched in 1985, but the group originated in 1974 with the Council of Families of the Detained; a council made up of the family members of 180 student activists detained on charges of belonging to the Association of Young Students for Democracy. Minkahyup helped mobilize the release of 1,400 prisoners of conscience and the clearing of 9,000 criminal records as part of an amnesty program. While South Korea saw an end to military regimes, as of 2005 Minkahyup members claim roughly 100 activists have not been cleared from wrongful charges and that there are still over 50 prisoners of conscience in jail.

In August 2007, a court ruled the government to pay 63.7 billion won in compensation to 46 members of the families of eight men who, in 1975, were wrongfully accused of violating the National Security Law and executed for their involvement in Inhyeok-dang, which was believed to be working in cooperation with North Korea.

2010s

While South Korea is no longer under military dictatorship, the incarceration of prominent labor union organizers demonstrates the administrations intolerance to the right of workers to assemble and protest unjust labor laws peacefully. Groups like The International Solidarity of the United Nations, International Labour Organization, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Amnesty International, labor unions, and other human rights activists have been working to reduce the prison sentencing for labor leaders, which could be as high as 5-10 years. Following the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, labor laws have been rewritten to benefit employers and create job insecurity for workers.

In 2017, Moon Jae-in was elected president of South Korea following the impeachment of Park Geun-hye. Buddhist, Catholic, indigenous Cheondogyo, Won Buddhists and Protestant religious groups joined forces at a press conference in Seoul’s Gwanghwamun Plaza to demand Moon Jae-in release political prisoners.

See also

Political Prisoner

National Security Act (South Korea)

History of South Korea

Human Rights in South Korea

Amnesty International

Minkahyup Human Rights Group

References

This article "Political Prisoners in South Korea" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Political Prisoners in South Korea. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

---