Early December seven female south Korean university students filed a
complaint against the police for sexual molestation. The students
held a press conference at a female rights organization office in
Chung-gu, Seoul. They declared that it was their hope that by
daring to go public it would assist other women who are still in
jail or those who may be arrested in the future. They said that
police committed the offenses during and after the violent assault
on the student reunification festival last August.
The fascist south Korean puppet government had declared
illegal the students' annual August festival, which raises the
demand for reunification of the north and south, the ouster of U.S.
troops and the repeal of the fascist "National Security Law." Over
seven thousand students were arrested and thousands injured by the
police and military forces that were unleashed against them. Many
of the protesters were young women and there were concerns
expressed at the time for their safety while in custody. Apparently
those concerns were well founded according to the young women.
In the complaint filed with the Seoul District Prosecutor's
Office, the students accuse Park Il-yong, the head of the National
Police Agency, and other officers in charge of the raids with
sexual misconduct including verbal threats and various acts of
sexual violence. They also charge in the complaint that the head of
the police and other ranking police officers condoned the sexual
molestation committed by the attacking police and jailors.
Soon after the massive arrests, stories began to leak out of
the prisons of sexual misconduct on the part of the police. The
complaints were so pronounced, especially from parents, that they
were repeated in the south Korean Parliament by female opposition
members, who said that by the first week of September as many as 80
cases of sexual violence had already been reported to human rights
groups.
The charges against the National Police Agency were repeated
again in November, replete with detailed descriptions. The response
of the Kim Young-sam puppet government was to accuse the victims of
making "lewd statements in public" and of being "pro-North." The
government stepped up police raids on campuses, arresting and
persecuting all students who dare to participate in politics.
Hundreds of students have now been sentenced to prison terms
ranging from one-and-a-half years to three years in jail. No member
of the police has been accused of any crime.
Shawgi Tell
University at Buffalo
Graduate School of Education
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
