Another ruling has been issued in favor of a victim of Dongmyeongwon, a forced detention facility located in Mokpo, Jeonnam-Gwangju Integrated Special City, in a damages lawsuit filed against the state and local governments.

On the 25th, it was revealed that Judge Choi Yoon-joong of Civil Chamber 14 of the Gwangju District Court ruled partly in favor of the plaintiff on the 13th in a damages lawsuit filed by a 61-year-old identified by the surname Kim against the state, Jeonnam-Gwangju City, and Mokpo City. The court ordered the defendants to jointly pay Kim 100 million won in damages, along with delayed interest.

While living in a child protection facility in Mokpo due to difficult family circumstances, Kim was at Mokpo Station alone in July 1976 when he was forcibly detained in Dongmyeongwon by the police. At the time, Kim stated that he was staying at a child welfare facility, but the police ignored this, and Dongmyeongwon staff admitted him without obtaining consent from Kim or his original protection facility. Kim was forced to sleep in a goat shed and perform daytime labor, including managing pig and turkey sheds, cleaning the church office, and working in an orchard. He was also frequently subjected to harsh physical abuse, such as wonsan pokgyeok (a military-style punishment involving squatting with hands on the ground).

In August of the following year, Kim escaped Dongmyeongwon and headed for Seoul, only to be cracked down on by police once again and subjected to further victimization by being detained in Seogam Academy, another child and youth protection facility notorious for human rights abuses.

Kim applied for a truth-seeking investigation into the Dongmyeongwon human rights abuse case to the "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" in January 2021, and the commission acknowledged the human rights violations against seven individuals in April of last year.

The court judged that the state implemented street crackdowns without legal grounds, allowing public power such as the police to forcibly detain the victim without following due legal procedures, and that Jeonnam-Gwangju City and Mokpo City failed to properly supervise the facility, leading to the human rights violations.

The court stated, "The plaintiff was forcibly detained in Dongmyeongwon at a young age, suffered extreme physical and mental anguish—including beatings and forced labor—and appears to still suffer from psychological aftereffects to this day." It added, "The harsh treatment at Dongmyeongwon is a grave human rights violation carried out over a long period with the active involvement of the state and local governments, making the degree of illegality extremely heavy and creating a high necessity to deter and prevent recurrence."

Previously on the 15th, Civil Chamber 37 of the Seoul Central District Court (Presiding Judge Kim Ju-wan) also ordered the state and Mokpo City to pay a total of 1.752 billion won in compensation to six Dongmyeongwon victims.

[Copyright (c) Global Economic Times. All Rights Reserved.]