hankyoreh

Having caused the deaths of six people with a ill-planned and violent suppression of a protest by people being removed from their homes and places of business in an area slated for redevelopment, police have prevented the families of the deceased from confirming the identities of their bodies and are using violent tactics in putting down street protests against the killings.

Beginning Tuesday evening and as of Wednesday morning, police have been preventing families from identifying the bodies of the five protesters who died in the police action that are being kept at Soonchunhyang Hospital in Seoul’s Yongsan district, also where the tragedy took place, citing “orders from higher up.”

“The police told us to come and claim my father’s body,” said Yang Jong-won, the son of 56-year-old Yang Hoe-seong, who died in the fire. “How can they refuse to let us even verify the body all these hours?”

Faced with angry family members, police finally allowed one “representative” from each family to verify the identities of the deceased at around 1:00 a.m. Wednesday.

Families are also angry over the decision to perform autopsies without their permission.

“The only part of my husband’s feet that weren’t burned were the ends of his toes,” said Kwon Myeong-suk, referring to her 50-year-old husband Lee Seong-su. “It was like killing him all over again” to perform an autopsy without her permission. “How can they turn his body into a wounded mess without asking his family?”

Seoul National University professor of medicine Hwang Sang-ik said he “can’t understand how family wasn’t allowed to be observe the autopsy, since this isn’t a military dictatorship now.”

“When Lee Cheol-gyu died in 1989 and when Lee Nae-chang died three months later, professors from universities selected by their families were allowed to be observers at their autopsies,” noted Hwang.

The families that were able to have one family member verify their deceased relative early Wednesday morning have still not been given possession of their bodies for wake and burial.

In addition to being consistently irresponsible towards the victims’ families, police are using harsh tactics against citizens protesting the deaths. They used a water cannon against 1,500 people who held a candlelight protest late Tuesday night, then engaged angrier protesters in a stone-throwing battle. then the police threw rocks back at the more active protesters. Roughly twenty people were injured at the candlelight protest, including members of the press, and were taken to area hospitals. Two people were arrested.

Police even used violence against members of a National Assembly fact-finding mission.

According to statements from the Renewal of Korea Party Wednesday, party member Yu Won-il identified himself as a member of the National Assembly but was verbally abused and beaten, with police demanding to know “if you can do what you want ‘cause you’re a member of the National Assembly.” He has since been diagnosed with a concussion, requiring two weeks of treatment.

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