Military dictators in the 1960s to 1980s sent thousands of homeless and disabled people and children to facilities where they were forced to work
South Korea’s top public prosecutor apologised on Tuesday over what he described as a botched investigation into the enslavement and mistreatment of thousands of people at a vagrants’ facility in the 1970s and 1980s.
The remarks by Prosecutor General Moon Moo-il came nearly three decades after the facility’s owner was acquitted of serious charges, and were the government’s first formal expression of remorse over what was one of the worst human rights atrocities in modern South Korea.
They add pressure on the country’s parliament to pass legislation that would start a deeper inquiry into the now-closed Brothers Home, whose owner was exonerated from serious charges amid an obvious cover-up orchestrated at the highest levels of government.
“The past government created a directive that had no base in laws and used state power to detain citizens at the Brothers Home confinement facility with the disguised purpose of protecting them; more than that (inmates) were subjected to forced labour, while experiencing brutal violence and other harsh violations of their human rights,” Moon said, stopping several times during his statement while appearing to hold back tears.
“I accept with a heavy heart the results of our committee (on past cases) that the prosecution then caved into pressure from above and closed its investigation prematurely. Even on the charges that were included in the indictment, the defendants weren’t properly punished during the trials. This was a process that cannot be described as democracy.”
Moon delivered his apology in a meeting with about a dozen former inmates, most of whom were children when they were snatched off the street by police and city officials and locked up at Brothers Home.
