What are the prosecutors hiding?

One hundred and Fifty days after the Yong-San incident, a never-ending tragedy

150 [now 210—Ed.] days ago, a shocking incident took place in Yong-San [Seoul] which resulted in 6 deaths was caused by the police less than a day after the protests began. It's been 5 months [now 7 months] since it happened but no one has taken responsibility for the deaths. The families have been wearing the funeral clothes asking for a proper investigation. ▲ The families of the deads haven't had a funeral yet. © Taek-yong Jung It was the dawn of January 20, 2009, not long after the lunar New Year's Day. Less than a day after the tenants of Yong-San started protesting, 6 people were killed when the special police force entered the building which was being occupied by the tenants. Since then, I have been visiting and advocating for the arrested tenants for over 5 months [now 7 months], but the tragedy is still ongoing. The Yong-San incident clearly shows where the have-nots stand in Korea. The police acted very swiftly to the tenants' demonstration while overlooking the violence done by security guards who were hired by construction companies. While giving the police "indulgence," the prosecutors blamed the tenants for the incident and refused to show the investigation records to the attorneys of the tenants—this being against the directions of the court order. In order to distract the public's attention from the facts of this incident, the Blue House gave an order to the division of public relations in the National Police Agency to actively advertise the arrest of the serial killer of Gun-po area, which happened around the same time. Even after the intervention of the Blue House was uncovered, there was no apology made by the authority about this matter. No one took responsibility for the killing of 5 protesters. Their families, waiting for a genuine investigation and apology, haven't been able to hold funerals for the deceased. Prosecutors, rejecting the court order of releasing evidence The arrested tenants haven't been able to have a fair trial by the prosectors who have refused to release investigation records and have not allowed the defendants to be tried by a jury. [Korea is adopting a jury trial.] Most of the records that the prosecutors have hindered the attorneys from viewing are related to the police claim that "in order to find out the roles played by the special police force and the security guards in the incident, we thoroughly investigated the leaders of the police force who were involved in it and the communication records between the police and the security guards staffing companies in order to determine whether there was any illegal action, and also checked the transceiver transcription records among the police." The relevant records account for one-third of the entire investigative records amounting in total to 10,000 pages, and are the core evidence for the legitimacy of the actions done by the police force which is a premise of the prosecution of the tenants. ▲ Yong-San incident shows where the have nots stand. © Taek-Yong Jung What are the prosecutors hiding? According to the records that were released by the prosecutors in appealing for witnesses, we can guess what they are hiding. There were several statements made by the tenants contradicting the prosecution including statements regarding the origin of the fire. For example, an officer of the special police force stated, "I didn't see the tenants throwing grenades towards the streets a day before the incident," whereas the police claimed that 'oppression was necessary because the type of protest was close to urban terrorism." Also, it includes information on the security guards and on improper safety notices issued to the special police force. The police force members stated that they weren't informed of the existence of flammable materials in the building. Why did the police carry out this violent oppression less than a day after the protest began? It is very rare to dispatch a special police force within 24 hours to oppress tenants who took over a building in protest. Usually it takes at least a few months or even upto a year. Was it a way of showing excessive loyalty to the President who used to be a CEO of a construction company? The one who approved of this action was Sukki Kim, the head of the Seoul division of the National Policy Agency, who was asked to be the head of the National Police Agency at that time. The police approved of the action and dispatched a special police force less than 3 hours after the protest began without attempting sufficiently to persuade or negotiate with the tenants. The heads of the police were informed that there were a lot of flammable materials in the building but didn't implement any safety measures. There were people falling from the building because mattresses and safety nets weren't installed, and the police made a bigger fire by fighting an oil-based fire with water—contrary to the most basic fire-fighting knowledge. Due to this action by the police, the water on roof of the building reached ankle-height with oil floating on it. A violent oppression and break-down of the watchtower without any safe way to exit augmented the danger of a fire, but the safety of the tenants was never really in the interest of the police. Before the deadly fire broke out, there were several small fires but the police didn't make any effort to put them out or keep them from spreading. Finally, another fire broke out when the police tried again to enter the watchtower, and that fire had begun to burn out of control by the time the police asked the fire station for help. So, the Yong-San incident which took 6 people's lives including 5 tenants was brought about by the police's unusually early and hasty violent oppression. -Seo-yeon Jang, an attorney for the tenants Translated from http://www.ildaro.com/sub_read.html?uid=4868&section=sc1& For more detailed information on the Yong-San incident and the current status, go tohttp://mbout.jinbo.net/webbs/list.php?board=mbout_19