hankyoreh

By Park Min-hee, Beijing correspondent and Park Byong-su, staff reporter

The South Korean government plans to hold consular interviews with all 625 South Korean detainees being held in China after Kim Young-hwan reported being tortured while in custody in the country.

Kim spent 114 days in detention in China after having been arrested working with North Korean refugees in the border area. Kim was once a pro-North Korea activist who changed his tune and now works to encourage democracy in North Korea.

The government is taking action under pressure from the public who are demanding Seoul investigate allegations that a South Korean citizen was tortured in a foreign country. Seoul’s action raises the question about relations with Beijing, South Korea’s largest trading partner. Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesman Cho Tae-young released a statement on July 31 in which he said that Seoul had previously demanded that China investigate Kim‘s allegations of torture, issue an apology, and punish those responsible, and that it was making ongoing efforts.

The somewhat unusual decision to hold consular interviews with all South Korean detainees was interpreted by analysts as a belated aggressive response following charges by critics that diplomatic authorities were doing little about human rights abuses.

But the approach appears likely to trigger an all-out diplomatic conflict in the event of an outcry from Beijing. Yonhap News quoted a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Tuesday as saying that the State Security Ministry had “guaranteed the lawful rights” of Kim and the other South Korean detainees during its handling of the case.

Cho also urged China to investigate the matter thoroughly in the spirit of the United Nations Convention against torture, which it is a signatory to.

“We will continue to raise this matter with Beijing,” Cho pledged.

He also promised active support if Kim decides to take advantage of the individual petition system in the international human rights mechanism and lodge a complaint with the UN or at the multilateral level.

The Committee for the Release of Kim Young-hwan previously made a complaint about Kim’s case to the UN Commission on Human Rights Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the organization’s special rapporteur on torture.

Before its recent decision, Seoul had been adopting a “quiet diplomacy” approach to Kim’s case. Even after Kim said in a June 11 consular interview in Chinese detention center that he had been tortured, its only response was to quietly ask Beijing to confirm the allegations. When he repeated his claims upon his return to South Korea, Seoul reiterated that it planned to take further action after receiving a response from its previous request for confirmation.

But the ensuing outcry among media and politicians, who accused authorities of keeping quiet on an issue of human rights abuses against a South Korean citizen out of fears of diplomatic frictions with Beijing, appears to have forced it to belatedly adopt a more aggressive tack.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Seoul had not yet notified Beijing that it planned to hold consular interviews all 625 South Korean detainees. This means that China did not have a chance to respond. But analysts said this forceful move in the wake of Kim’s torture allegations, which would seem to target China’s much-discussed human rights issues, is certain to provoke authorities in Beijing.

Noting that consular interviews are guaranteed by diplomatic practice and do not require notification to the host country, an official at the South Korean embassy in Beijing said, “There hasn’t been any word yet from headquarters about when we’re going to start the interviews or how focused they will be.”

South Korea’s diplomatic missions in China have traditionally held regular consular interviews with nationals in jails, on the order of once a month for those in Beijing and once every two months for those elsewhere. The question of how focused the interviews are in a short period of time may affect the tone of Beijing’s response.

China is already denying Kim’s claims to have been tortured. The foreign ministry spokesperson said the country had “guaranteed the lawful rights” of Kim and the other detainees during their handling of the case.

Analysts saw this as showing that Beijing plans to address growing negative sentiment in South Korea by providing details about the circumstances under which Kim was allegedly subjected to abuse during his incarceration. The country appears to be moving quickly to put out the fire at a time when the Committee for the Release of Young-hwan has indicated it may accuse it of torture before the International Criminal Court.

Beijing could find itself in a very awkward situation if the torture of a foreigner by Chinese authorities turns into an international issue. Kim is apparently the first person detained in the country to make an opposition complaint of torture or physical abuse.

“Among people arrested by state security while working to aid North Korean defectors, we’ve seen people testify to being prevented from sleeping or beaten in ways that left no marks, but this is the first time anyone’s officially made unambiguous allegations of torture,” said a foreign relations source in Beijing.

The same source added that there was no precedent for allegations of Chinese authorities torturing a foreigner with electric shock, either.

Beijing has dismissed the charges a number of times in previous communications with Seoul. An official at the South Korean embassy in Beijing said the Chinese government was maintaining that it took the issue seriously, but that its own investigation found no evidence of violence or torture.

The matter also appears increasingly likely to trigger an outcry from China’s state-run media following the foreign ministry’s official denial. Already, the state-run Global Times printed an article Monday stating that a “famous anti-North Korea figure in South Korea is threatening to sue the Chinese government.”

On July 31, North Korea issued a statement through its Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea demanding an apology from the US and South Korea after a defector claimed that he had been instructed by those countries to destroy a statue of Kim Il-sung in Pyongyang. The North referred to this as "state-sponsored terrorism” against its leadership.

North Korea identified what it called the “prime movers” behind the alleged plans for destruction. Kim Young-hwan was included among them, as well as Jo Myong-chul, a former defector and proportional representative for the New Frontier Party.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]