TRC confirms serious human rights abuses at four more detention facilities in 1970s and 1980s

Lee Young-chul, a victim who was forced into a detention facility for more than 20 years, speaks at the Truth and Reconciliation Committee on September 9. Yonhap News

The second Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has confirmed that serious human rights abuses, such as forced detention, assault, and forced labor, occurred at four detention facilities after a large-scale investigation into them.

The TRC held its 86th committee on September 6 and made a decision on the 9th to clarify the truth about 13 applicants who were housed at the Seoul Metropolitan Rehabilitation Center, the Daegu Metropolitan City Hope Center, Cheonseongwon of South Chungcheong Province and Seonghyewon of Gyeonggi Province.

In the 1970s and 1980s, it was rampant to crack down on unspecified civilians who were designated as "vagrants" without due process and then send them to detention facilities. The facilities subject to the investigation were operated based on government policies at that time just like the infamous "Brothers Home" in Busan, which is called the "Korean version of Auschwitz." The TRC said," Beatings and harsh treatment were found to be prevalent in the facilities."

While the Brothers Home, whose abuses were revealed in 1987, was investigated by prosecutors, the other detention facilities continued to house vagrants under different names without any investigation.

In 1987, the then opposition New Democratic Party visited Cheonseongwon in South Chungcheong Province to conduct an investigation, but the investigation failed to take place after the facility blocked the main gate and assaulted lawmakers and reporters. The human rights violations at these facilities have been revealed to the world for the first time in 37 years since then.

In this investigation, it was confirmed that the inmates were handed over from a facility to another facility regardless of their intention. Six out of the 13 applicants were forcibly transferred to other facilities from the Brothers Home. Three of them were released from the Brothers Home and then cracked down again and forced into other facilities.

Mr. Park, a detainee of Seonghyewon said, “People whose body became bruised after being beaten so badly at the Brother Home in Busan were sent to the Daegu Metropolitan City Hope Center, and then sent to another detention center in Incheon after being beaten badly.”

Lee Young-cheol (66, pseudonym), who was forcibly detained for 20 years, attended a press conference held by the TRC on the same day and said, “When I was 15 years old, in the fall of 1973, I was sitting in the waiting room of Daegu Station, and a Daegu City Hall official told me to follow him, and he put me into a truck and detained me in the Daegu Metropolitan City Hope Center. Since then, I have been forcibly detained in a total of five facilities.” He added that he “saw 100 people die” during his 16 years of detention in Yangjiwon of South Chungcheong Province.

After he was released from Yangjiwon in 1998, Lee said he was homeless at Seoul station and other places until 2016, when he started to stay in a tiny room through the city's temporary housing subsidy program and was selected to move into a rental house in 2022. “I've been living at home for 49 years since I was first taken to the facility,” Lee said, adding, ”I hope the detention facilities will close their doors as soon as possible.”

There were also many cases of atrocities against dead bodies and newborns. It was revealed that Sungjiwon under Cheonseongwon in South Chungcheong Province provided 117 dead bodies of the detainees to a medical school for anatomical practice for 10 years from 1982. “It has not been confirmed whether the facility received money for selling them,” said an investigator from the TRC.

It was also confirmed that children born in the detention centers, including Cheonseongwon in South Chungcheong Province and the Daegu Metropolitan City Hope Center, were transferred to adoption agencies, such as the Holt Children's Services, for overseas adoption immediately after birth.

The investigation also identified a number of data that could reveal the overall responsibility of the state in cracking down on vagrants and supporting the operation of the facilities.

A case in point is the detailed guidelines sent by the Seoul Metropolitan Government to the authorities having jurisdiction regarding the “interior ministry's order No. 410,” which was the basis for cracking down on vagrants and forcibly detaining them. The guidelines said, "The head of the district and the police chief will help and protect transport vehicles traveling from detention facilities from unfortunate accidents, such as escape and assault while transferring (tramps).”

The TRC urged the state should officially apologize to the victims and take practical measures to recover the damage by saying, "The government continued illegal crackdowns by joint crackdown teams in the name of social purification, and entrusted the operation of the detention facilities to private corporations, neglecting to prevent a number of serious human rights violations such as confinement, assault, and forced labor from occurring.” It also recommended that the state should institutionalize investigations into additional victims.

※This article has undergone review by a professional translator after being translated by an AI translation tool.