SEOUL (UCAN) - Religious and secular human rights advocates have called on South Korean President-elect Kim Dae-jung to grant amnesty to all political prisoners when he assumes the presidency on Feb. 25. Five members of the Conference of Human Rights Organizations of South Korea, including Buddhist, Protestant and Catholic representatives, urged Kim during their visit Feb. 2 to implement his campaign pledges of judicial reform and establishing a human rights fund. They also asked Kim to abolish capital punishment and the computerized identity card system that is planned to be introduced nationwide.
Father Matthias Kim Seung-hoon of Seoul archdiocese, currently the permanent Catholic representative to the conference, gave Kim a list of 529 political prisoners and asked him to give special consideration to student activists wanted by the police.
The president-elect responded that he would consider the matter seriously when he begins his five-year term in office. Father Kim also delivered a personal letter from Cardinal Stephen Kim Sou-hwan of Seoul saying that he expected Kim Dae-jung to take a "progressive measure for the question of the amnesty of prisoners of conscience."
Appealing on behalf of all prisoners of conscience and urging the president-elect "to make Korean people feel concretely the change of political power," Cardinal Kim asked for special consideration for those recommended for release by the Catholic Human Rights Committee, especially 12 whom he named. The 12 included poet Kasbar Park No-hae, former lawmaker and president of the Korean Catholic Farmers' Movement Soh Kyong-won, and Pakistanis Mian Mohamad Ajaz and Amir Jamil, both on death row for a murder which they maintain they did not commit in a case that has aroused controversy.
The cardinal appealed to the president-elect's personal experience, saying, "You have a special concern and affection for those in jail because you have experienced it yourself in the past." Releasing prisoners of conscience would "announce a new era long desired by Korean people and show them the beautiful image of a community that has generous concern for alienated people," the Seoul archbishop said.
Cardinal Kim added his hope that the efforts of Kim Dae-jung's government, which advocates "a government of the people," will bear abundant fruit.
UCAN (13. februar 1998)
13. februar 1998