hankyoreh

By Song Chae Kyung-hwa　
　　
Students participating in the growing “half-price tuition” demonstrations have accused the police of unreasonable investigations into university students that were arrested on June 10 when conducting a flash demonstration near Cheong Wa Dae (the presidential office in South Korea or Blue House). It has emerged that police demanded that a female student being held at Gwangjin Police Station in Seoul remove her bra, and then had her investigated by a male police officer while her bra was still off.
The student victims that belong to the 21st Century Korean University Student Association held a press conference on June 15 at Cheonggye Square on the Taepyeong-ro thoroughfare in central Seoul, claiming, “Oppressive investigations in violation of human rights were conducted on the 72 students arrested by police on June 10. One female student held by police, in particular, was sexually humiliated by being forced to remove her bra then being subjected to investigation by a male officer without having been able to put the bra back on again.”
The students also stated, “At some police stations, warrants were issued for the investigation of students on the grounds that they had ‘refused to give fingerprints’ when they had not even been asked to give fingerprints. In some cases, raids were conducted on students who had not even been shown the investigation warrants. Police officers used verbal use, hit heads with their hands and blocked appeals to the National Human Rights Commission of Korea or access to lawyers.”
The press conference featured a series of testimonies from students that claimed they had been investigated under duress or experienced human rights violations at Jongno, Gwangjin and Songpa police stations.
“They demanded that most female students take off their bras, but the others refused and only that student did so,” said Kim Nam-yeong, 21, a third year student at Sungshin Women’s University who was held at Gwangjin Police Station together with the female student in question. “She was taken away to be investigated separately, then came back in tears.”
In response, Hong Yeong-hwa, head of Gwangjin Police Station, held a press conference on June 15, saying, “[Unlike other female students], this student showed signs of being uneasy about having come to a police station, so a female officer had her take her bra off for safety reasons. This was in line with legal procedures. I apologize, however, since she says that she felt humiliated later in the process of being investigated by a male police officer.”
Police, however, refuted accusations of other human rights abuses, calling them unfounded. Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency (SMPA) issued an explanation, stating, “We enforced warrants after presenting them to the detainees and reading the contents to them. We never blocked appeals to the NHRCK. It is true that we knocked on the bars of cells in the morning at wakeup time, but it is not true that we woke people up by kicking their heads.”
　　　
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