See also: State violence, Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), State surveillance

  • First step for control: delegitimizing the press
  • Books censored
    • Can be jailed or tortured for publishing anti-government
  • Climate of fear among those who have power
    • If one person has too much power
      • Target of repression
      • Scapegoat

newspaper protests and corporatization

  • Economic pressures and intimidation by KCIA
    • Kyunghyang Shinmun and Chosun Ilbo became government voices
      • Taken over from behind
      • Government agents controlling
    • Donga Ilbo last resistant newspaper
      • Speaking out against government problems
  • Suppression of ad campaign against Donga Ilbo (Dec. 1974–Jul. 1975)
    • KCIA pressures advertisers to pull ads
    • Revenue decreases 0%
    • Editors create white-space protests
    • Anti-government messages
  • Free speech movements go underground
    • Information unverifiable
  • Corporatization
    • Restricting licensing
      • Reduces numbers
    • Chaebeol takeovers
      • Government ties
      • Increase profit
      • Government encouraged takeovers of oppositional newspapers
  • Result: less newspaper opposition

torture in Korean History

  • Joseon Dynasty (1392–1897)
    • Institutionalized (penal code)
    • Interrogation
    • Punishment
  • Japanese Colonial Period (1910–1945)
    • “Legally prohibited”
      • But common practice
    • Modern techniques
      • Electricity
      • Medicine
    • Political, for suppression
      • Korean Nationalists
      • Communists
      • Christians
        • Opposing idols of Shinto = opposing state

torture in the Republic of Korea (ROK)

  • 1948 Constitution
    • Article 10: human rights
    • Article 12.2: no torture
  • National Security Law
  • Continued to use (1948–1987)
    • Security agencies
    • National and local police
    • Interrogation
    • Punish political challengers and communists
    • Suppress political dissidents
  • Does not respect human rights
  • High profile cases
    • Kim Keum-tae (1985): democracy activist and politician (torture)
    • Kwon In-sook (1986): women’s labor activist (sexual assault)
    • Park Jong-chul (1987): pro-democracy student (died by waterboarding)
      • Major impetus for movement, June uprising
  • Anti-torture movement
  • 1987: Constitution Provision Article 12
    • Prohibit torture to get confessions (section 2)
    • Confessions using torture not admitted as evidence (section 7)
  • 1990 April: adherance to Human Rights Treaties
    • 1966: Convention on Civil and Political Rights
    • 1984: Convention Against Torture
  • 1991: member of UN
    • Adherance to 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights
  • Shift
    • Softening
    • State sponsored to neglecting minimal use of to monitoring

torture and international legitimacy

  • Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
    • Article 5: no “torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”
    • Article 9: no “arbitrary arrest, detention or exile”
  • International Covenants (1966)
    • Article 7: “the freedom from torture or any other cruel treatments, inhuman or degrading”
  • Gain legitimacy within world for nation states
    • Follow standard practices of a just and proper society
      • Legitimacy
      • Stability
      • Partnerships
  • Signaling commitment to human rights
    • Not always in practice