Human Rights Association for Victims of Coercive Conversion Programs(HAC) “Conversion pastors, avoidance from the law by hiding behind the victim’s family”
“Violation of human rights and Coercive conversion” The South Korean government remains silent... Rather, other countries point out the seriousness
The 2nd Anniversary for Gu Ji-In who died of coercive conversion on Jan., 2018 was held at the 18th of Jan., 2020 in Gwangju, South Korea. The anniversary was under the theme “Remember 9, remember and shout.”
About 1,000 members of Human Rights Association for Victims of Coercive Conversion Programs(HAC), external personnel and citizens participated in this memorial ceremony hosted by HAC (Chairperson Choi Ji-Hye) to pray for the repose of the deceased. They wanted that barbaric human rights violation and deaths involving means of kidnapping, assault and imprisonment to convert own’s religion forcedly would never happen again.
Before and after the ceremony, the members of HAC carried out following activities to publicize to citizens the seriousness of the coercive conversion that is still taking place in the democratic South Korea, where religious freedom is guaranteed by the Constitution. They also operated both a show booth to announce cases of damage caused by the conversion and a civic engagement booth to write a memorial message.
The major members of HAC are the victims kidnapped, violated, and imprisoned by their family whom the conversion pastors in the Korean Heterodox Counsellor incite. However, the legal punishment to the conversion pastors has yet not to be taken.
An official in HAC said, "The reason why it is difficult to punish them is because they use methods to order kidnapping, assault, confinement, and intimidation by hiding behind the victim’s families without going to the front to avoid the law," and “In such a way, the conversion pastors take ‘The Conversion Program Consent’ forcedly from the conversion subjects and when some problem happen they shift all responsibility to subjects’ family.”
According to the report released by the Gwangju-Jeonnam branch of HAC, “The Report about the Reality of Coercive Conversion,” the number of the whole conversion victims from 2001 to 2019 was 1,534. There were ▲861 assaults, ▲1,280 intimidations, ▲1,338 forced leaves of absence, ▲1,293 forced signatures on the conversion consent, ▲109 forced doses of sleeping pill, ▲682 restraints, ▲977 kidnappings, ▲1,121 confinements ▲43 divorces ▲13 forced hospitalizations to psychiatric hospital, ▲1 death of the victim’s family, and ▲2 death of the victims.
At the memorial service, Jang Gye-Hwang, the chairman of the Korea Historical and Territory Foundation, said, "The will granted to humans by God and the freedom of human rights granted by the nation to the people are individual rights that no one can infringe. Nevertheless, we were very sorry to have let go the late Gu Ji-In. The reason was the choice of religion granted by God, but human rights were ruthlessly trampled on and not protected by both family, society and the nation.” “In the condolence and remembrance, other victims like Ms. Gu should not be occurred,” he stressed.
"It is shocking that human rights violation took place in the human rights city of Gwangju," a twenty female university student said. "It is sad that people of my age died from religious problems in a religious freedom country. I hope our country and all citizens will step up to prevent such a tragedy not to happen again," she said.
The late Gu Ji-In was detained in a Catholic monastery in Jangseong, South Korea for 44 days by her family in July 2016 and forced to convert her faith. In the following year, June 2017, she informed the reality about the coercive conversion to the Blue House in Korea and appealed for the punishment of the conversion pastors and the enactment of the prohibition of religious discrimination.
She was detained again and forced to convert to a pension in Hwasun, South Korea, on Dec. 29 of the same year, was taken to Chonnam National University Hospital on Dec. 30 due to difficulty breathing by his family's assault, but was dead of hypoxic brain damage on Jan. 9, 2018.
After the death of Gu Ji-In, the article about the call for “The Coercive Conversion Prohibition” released on the site of “National Petition” of the Blue House and more than 140,000 people agreed to enact the law, but the Blue House abruptly deleted the article because the victim’s identity was in it and has yet to give an answer it.
Other countries, on the other hand, has expressed concerns and warned of the seriousness of human rights violations and illegalities caused by the coercive conversion, rather being a warning sign to the South Korean government.
At the 41st U.N. Human Rights Conference held in July last year, the European “CAP Freedom of Conscience” (CAP-LC) officially issued a statement condemning the forced conversion in South Korea.
At “The Ministerial Conference on the Promotion of Religious Freedom” held at the U.S. State Department office building in the same month, 15 major international NGOs criticized the South Korean government with the same content. They said, “We sent a letter of the calling for the shutdown of the coercive conversion to president Moon Jea-In,” and “Theological dispute is freedom but It is a clear crime kidnapping and imprisoning people.”
