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Reverend George Ogle (far left) and Father James Sinnott at an event commemorating South Korea’s democratization in 2002.

Two American clerics received Civil Merit Medals from the South Korean government during a service commemorating the June Democracy Movement on June 10. The medal recipients, Reverend George Ogle (Korean name Oh Myeong-geol) and Father James Sinnott (Korean name Jin Pil-se), were missionaries to Korea who provided various forms of assistance to democracy activists opposing the military dictatorship under Park Chung-hee.

Ogle arrived in Korea in 1954 as a missionary with the United Methodist Church and spent 20 years building the Urban Industrial Mission, which organized a program to educate workers about their rights and labor law. While serving as a professor at Seoul National University, Ogle tried to help people sentenced to death on trumped up charges in the People’s Revolutionary Party Incident, leading to his deportation on Dec. 14, 1974.

Sinnott was sent to Korea in 1961 as a member of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers, a Catholic missionary society, and was assigned to the Diocese of Incheon. After information was leaked that the confessions in the People’s Revolutionary Party Incident had been extracted through torture, Sinnott fought to save the convicted individuals. When Sinnott protested their swift execution by the Park regime, officials refused to extend his visa and deported him at the end of April 1975. Sinnott returned to Korea in 2003 and wrote a book titled “April 9, 1975,” published in October 2004, which provides a detailed account of the People’s Revolutionary Party Incident. He passed away in 2014.

By Seong Yeon-cheol, staff reporter

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