#CoerciveConversionDay #Victims
#rememberGu #HumanRights
On 7th October 2019, Human
Rights Association Against Coercive Conversion Programs (HAC) hosted a memorial in
commemoration of the victims of 'coercive conversion', the late Ji-in Gu and Sun
Hwa Kim in Seoul, Republic of Korea (South Korea). The memorial was purposed
to raise awareness of the ongoing suffering of many believers and families torn
apart by coercive conversion, and to call for eradication of the practice and for
punishment of its perpetrators.
Coercive conversion is a
practice established and implemented by the Christian Council of Korea (CCK), which is an organisation of churches in Korea founded on Presbyterian doctrine
in 1989. Coercive conversion pastors target believers from up-and-coming church
denominations by deceiving their families - often parents - into believing
that their loved one has joined a cult. Upon the pastor’s counsel, families feed
their loved ones sleeping pills and abduct them to a remote location where they
are handcuffed and robbed of their phones. They are then subjected to physical
and psychological abuse until they renounce their religious beliefs and consent
to receiving Presbyterian ‘conversion education’. To date, a staggering 1300 believers (mainly in their late teens and 20s) in South Korea have been subjected to this barbaric practice. All this in a supposedly democratic country with a constitutional law which enshrines religious freedoms - article 20 stating that "all
citizens enjoy the freedom of religion”.
In the worst case, coercive
conversion has resulted in murder. Sun Hwa Kim was bludgeoned to death with a hammer
by her ex-husband in October 2007, and Ji-In Gu was suffocated to death at the
hands of her own parents on January 9th 2018 for being believers in minority churches. Following the murder of Ji-In Gu, a 120,000-strong
rally hosted by HAC was held in Seoul calling on the government to intervene to ban coercive conversion, enact a law against it and
punish the culprits. In February 2018, 25,000 HAC members and citizens gathered
outside the HQ of the CCK and its mouthpiece, Christian Broadcasting System (CBS)
in Seoul. Similar global rallies followed including in Washington D.C. and
New York, leading to denunciation of the practice by the United Nations. Staggeringly, the Korean government has failed to release a single statement and the majority of the perpetrators (pastors) have gone unpunished because they label this programme 'counselling', and use victims' families to their advantage, masking their true intent for financial
profit. In the last ten years, CCK pastors have received 12,000 sentences for crimes including fraud, burglary, forgery, defamation, drink-driving, arson and sexual assault.
The memorial ceremony - which received full support from Willy Fautré, director of Human Rights Without Frontiers (HRWF) - included a moving speech by the sister of late Sun Hwa Kim, who said, “To prevent the loss of another innocent life, I will spread news of your unjust death to the world and resolve our deep sorrow until the human rights abuses incurred by coercive conversion disappears." HAC spokesperson, Mr. Sang-ik Park, denounced coercive conversion and called for its end.
The hope is that the memorial will also one day give official recognition to 7th October as 'Victims of Coercive Conversion
Day'.
HAC will continue to push until the government takes action. As this article goes out, over 100 believers are currently confined against their will in remote locations throughout South Korea, suffering silently.
HAC will continue to push until the government takes action. As this article goes out, over 100 believers are currently confined against their will in remote locations throughout South Korea, suffering silently.
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