Korean society was called the a forceful anticommunist society based on National Security Law in the 1960s and 1970s. During the years there were a lot of spies and 'reds' in the prisons, and some of them became so-called unconverted long-term political prisoners. Their deplorable conditions in prison began to be disclosed at home and abroad in the process of the democratic movements in Korea since the 1980s. According to the North-South joint declaration in June 15, 62 persons of them could be repatriated to their families in North Korea on September 2, 2000. What do human rights mean to them? Saying it by the square, as all of ordinary people might live with the poor human rights in those years, it seemed to be natural that those prisoners had to get on without the rights. They claimed that the minimum rights should be allowed for themselves as well as for the ordinary prisoners. Though they were in prison, the necessities of life as well as the freedom of conscience should have been allowed to them. But the state did not grant them the freedom of conscience. Furthermore, it was unwilling to give proper necessities of life. Such a treatment itself was a kind of everyday and structural policy to convert them to South Korea within liberal democracy regime. As a result, everyday they had no choice but conversion or death. This article tried to find the meaning of the everyday life of the unconverted long-term political prisoners. And it tried to study what their reaction about or against the penological treatment was. And it tried to find the reason why they should be put in solitary prisons, where they could occasionally move collectively. This is based on the oral history of unconverted long-term political prisoners by methodology of oral history.
카카오톡
페이스북
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