At 10 a.m. on Wednesday, September 29, 2021, civic groups held a press conference in front of the National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) to push for probing into the cruel treatment inflicted on a Morrocan at Hwaseong Immigration Detention Center and setting up measures to prevent it from recurring. Lawyers and activists that support the victim informed the outline of the case and the current status of immigration administration and detention centers. The victim’s statement was read by a victim-and-survivor of the Korean government’s fabrication that turned Korean Japanese students into a spy ring in the 1970s. There was also a solidarity speech by a ruling party legislator. Below is the press conference statement that was jointly endorsed by a total of 400 organizations, including Korea Refugee Rights Network and Majoong, a group of Korean citizens that regularly visit Hwaseong Immigration Detention Center.
Photo by: Korea Refugee Rights Network
Press conference statement
A press conference statement seeking the truth regarding and pressing for countermeasures for the human rights infringement case involving torture via Leg/Arm Restraints, Punitive Solitary Confinement, and Rigging Official Documents at Hwaseong Immigration Detention Center
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Mr. M, who came to South Korea to seek asylum and was given a deportation order after a long process of refugee status determination, was subject to solitary confinement twelve times over the period of three months, which comprises one-third of his time at the detention center in the name of “special surveillance”. The officials of the immigration detention center responded to M, who constantly protested in the solitary cell, by connecting and restraining his arms and legs behind his back, leaving his limbs bent like a shrimp for up to four hours at a time.
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Hwaseong Immigration Detention Center has violated both the durational and procedural regulations of special solitary surveillance, and used arbitrarily mobilized tools such as box-tape and cable-tie to restrain Mr. M in an unnatural way that is beyond the imaginations of ordinary people, effectively torturing Mr. M.
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Look at the picture. Look at the picture of a person with his arms and legs all tied up and his head wrapped in a box-tape, left alone for four hours in a 2.6 pyeong (8.6m2) solitary cell. Look at the desperate writhing of a person with his body bent into an unnatural position where blood cannot flow to his head and cannot even see the front properly. Just look at the picture.
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The Ministry of Justice and the Hwaseong Immigration Detention Center have persistently argued that given Mr. M’s usual behavior and speech, these acts were carried out “to prevent self-harm”, “to prevent disturbances,” and that “he [Mr. M] deserved to be treated like this.” There is no person in this world who “deserves to be treated” like that. Not even in prisons, much less in detention centers, can such torture be routinely inflicted on criminals who have committed the most heinous of crimes.
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Immigration Detention Centers, like prisons, enforce surveillance and confinement. However, they are classified not as criminal justice institutions but as civil institutions and have operated under the mask of “protective centers”. So far, this human right violation has been justified as “protection from self-harm”. Acts of human rights violations which are not permitted in general prisons and have long disappeared from prisons are being carried out in an overt manner in the so-called “legal void”.
It is time to put an end to this vicious circle of bad practices. To prevent such a tragedy from occurring again, we demand of the Korean government the following actions:
First, immediately release Mr. M, the victim of torture, from the detention center
Second, promise to investigate the human rights violations carried out against Mr. M and punish those responsible for the acts.
Third, the head of the Hwaseong Immigration Detention Center and the Minister of Justice to issue a proper apology and implement measures to prevent the recurrence of similar atrocities.
Fourth, to investigate the problem of indefinite detention and poor protection status in immigration detention centers and prepare relevant improvement measures.
Photo from: Hwaseong Immigration Detention Center