Latest news with #GwangjuDistrictCourt
Korea Herald
6 days ago
- Korea Herald
Fishermen wrongly convicted of defecting to NK to be compensated over 50 years later
A South Korean court recently ordered the state to compensate two former fishermen who were wrongly convicted of violating the state's security and anti-communism law after they were abducted by North Korea in the 1970s. The Suncheon branch of the Gwangju District Court ordered compensation for the 82-year-old plaintiff and the bereaved family of the other fisherman. The two plaintiffs were accused of violating the National Security Act and the now-defunct anti-communism law in 1973, but the charges were cleared in a 2024 retrial. The two men were kidnapped by a North Korean vessel while fishing on their boats in August 1971. Despite them saying their crossing of the military demarcation line was due to them being kidnapped, the South Korean court sentenced them to a suspended jail term and suspended their fishing licenses for three years. The retrial confirmed that they were indeed kidnapped by the North Korean ships that threatened to open fire on them, and that they were illegally detained during the investigation by the South Korean officials before their arrest warrants were issued. The surviving plaintiff will receive 36 million won ($26,000), with varying levels of financial compensation to be paid to 10 bereaved family members of the deceased fisherman.
Korea Herald
11-08-2025
- Politics
- Korea Herald
1930s document shows women jailed for warning others about Japanese sex slavery
Four individuals convicted for spreading word about "comfort women" sent to Japanese military in China Spreading word about Japanese military's mobilization of Korean women into sexual slavery resulted in suspended prison terms, newly revealed documents showed Monday. According to the 1930s court documents released by the government of Yeongam-gun, South Jeolla Province, Koreans who informed others about women being mobilized were tried and found guilty of spreading falsehoods. In a ruling from 1938, Gwangju District Court under the Japanese rule found four Yeongam residents guilty of what they claimed to be false rumors. The documents were provided by the National Archives. The ruling dated Oct. 7 of 1938 showed that a mother by the name of Song Myeong-sim on Aug. 8 had heard news from another person named Yeong Mak-dong that many young women are hurrying into marriage. This was because the authorities were mobilizing unmarried women between the ages of 12 and 40 to send to Manchuria, China, to "comfort" the military. A week later, Song found that the town chief was creating census on female residents, including her 15-year-old daughter. She filed a complaint and inquiry about what she had heard, which led to her being convicted of violating the military law, along with Yeong who first told her the news. An Oct. 27 ruling in the same year showed that a person named Lee Wun-seon and another person named Han Man-ok had been convicted of the same charge, for also spreading the word about the comfort women. Han told Lee that women were being sent to China as comfort women, after which Lee told neighbors to "send your daughters away to marriage as quickly as you can." The UN and the international community have acknowledged the human rights violation committed by the Japanese military through the comfort women system. This is the first time a legal document has shown that Japan punished residents who tried to tell others about comfort women conscriptions, Yeongam officials said. "(Yeongam officials) will look for the descendants of those who had been unjustly punished, and see if there are ways that they can receive honors," Yeongam-gun chief Woo Seung-hee said.
