Widespread protests in Korea pleading for punishment of "coercive conversion education" pastors

Shortly after the murder of 25-year-old Ms. Ji-In Gu, rallies were held simultaneously throughout several cities in the Republic of Korea on 28^th January 2018. Cities included Seoul, Daejeon, Daegu, Busan, Gwangju and Jeonju with a total turnout of 140,000 people. With banners raised high, participants urged for the punishment of forced conversion pastors and criminalisation of their coercive conversion programme which has led to two murders, 1000 kidnappings of Korean youth and severe family division and social exclusion.

Those responsible for designing and implementing this programme are pastors of the Christian Council of Korea (CCK). It involves manipulating a parent into forcibly taking his or her child to a confined location for weeks and months where they are subjected to repeated conversion education in an attempt to get them to sign and convert from their minor religion to the mainstream Korean Presbyterian church to which these pastors belong. Victims who do not comply are put into psychiatric wards in exchange for money. Is this not an outright violation of basic human rights disguised behind religious motives? It utterly disregards the freedom of religion enshrined within the Korean Constitution.

Rallies were sparked by the death of Ms. Gu, who received coercive conversion education in a Catholic monastery by pastors and evangelists of the Christian Cult Counselling of Korea for a period of 44 days and, after her escape, pled in a letter to the then-Korean president for justice before being re-captured and killed. This is the second death resulting from such a practice after the first in 2007. The number of such cases is increasing nationwide and is becoming a huge societal issue. 

The rallies included a commemoration to the life of Ms. Gu and exposure of the practice of coercive conversion through video broadcasts and various performances.

The widespread practice of coercive conversion by pastors of the CCK and its support by Christian Broadcasting System (CBS) must come to an end. In the words of Mr. Ok-Soon Park, one of the main organisers of the rally in Daejeon, "In order to prevent further injustice in a climate where more than 1000 people nationwide have become victims of coercive conversion, it is imperative to enforce legal punishment on these criminal pastors who are leading coercive conversion programmes and prohibit the practice."