hankyoreh

at Anguk intersection in Seoul

Participants in the Sewol and Labor Day demonstrations who suffered lasting physical pain after being hit by police water cannons that were mixed with PAVA (a synthetic capsaicinoid solution) are asking the Constitutional Court to block the arbitrary use of water cannons containing tear gas. They also asked a research institute to analyze the chemical composition of liquid that was collected from the site of the demonstrations.

Jang Dong-won, 45, the leader of a group of parents of children who survived the Sewol ferry sinking, says that the police hit him in the right cheek with a water cannon mixed with tear gas, which knocked him over.

Jang had been participating in an all-night demonstration calling for the scrapping of the enforcement decree for the special Sewol Law. The demonstration was held around the Anguk neighborhood of the Jongno District of Seoul on the night of May 1.

“Even after being knocked over, the police kept spraying me with the water cannon, and I swallowed a lot of water mixed with the tear gas. I felt sick after the demonstration so I went to the hospital, where I was diagnosed with laryngitis,” Jang said on May 5.

An individual named Lee, 36, who participated in the same demonstration, was taken to the nearby Paik Hospital when he started vomiting after being hit by tear gas from the cannon.

Another individual named Lee, 33, said that blisters formed on his arms and legs after he was hit with the tear gas water cannon.

These three individuals decided to file a petition with the Constitutional Court to force the police to change their internal rules and guidelines to prevent the use of tear gas water cannons.

“Water cannons filled with PAVA violate the basic rights of citizens, including the right to life, right to health, and freedom of assembly. When the police use them without any legal basis, they are violating the constitution,” said Park Ju-min, the lawyer who will represent them, explaining why the three are filing the petition. Park is secretary general for MINBYUN-Lawyers for a Democratic Society.

The Act on the Performance of Duties by Police Officers vaguely limits the use of hazardous police equipment to the minimum required. More details are found in the police regulations about the use of hazardous police equipment and the guidelines for operating water cannons. But these guidelines only state that solutions containing tear gas may be used in water cannons.

“There are no standards about the kinds or concentration of chemicals solutions that can be used. What we need are not guidelines that the police can revise at will but clear standards set out in the law,” Park said.

The National Human Rights Commission of Korea recommended in 2008 and 2012 that a law should be passed providing specific standards for the use of water cannons.

In June 2014, the Constitutional Court concluded by a margin of six to three that water cannons themselves are constitutional, arguing that the violation of rights ends when the act of shooting the cannon stops. The dissenting judges argued that water cannons should be regulated by law since they can cause serious injury and death.

Since firing PAVA from water cannons increases these risks, the Constitutional Court will likely have to revisit the issue.

In related news, MINBYUN lawyers who have been monitoring human rights violations at the Sewol demonstrations asked Green Hospital, which is part of the Institute for Environmental and Occupational Health, to perform a component analysis of the tear gas solution collected from the scene of the demonstration.

“We used the minimum necessary force, taking into account the rights and safety of the protestors. Our actions were comparable to those in major countries with outstanding human rights records,” the police said on May 4 after controversy flared about the harm posed by the tear gas.

By Kim Kyu-nam, staff reporter

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