Adult Male Drugged With Sleeping Pills For Coercive Conversion - His Refusal Led to Parent's One-Person Protest
📰On 10th August 2020, Cheonji Ilbo (Cheonji Daily) published an article, in Korean, entitled "Adult Male Drugged With Sleeping Pills For Coercive Conversion - His Refusal Led to Parent's One-Person Protest". This is a translation of that report.
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The once unknown term 'forced conversion' became a serious topic in South Korean society in 2008 after Pastor Yong-Sik Jin sent Mrs. Baek-Hyang Jeong to a psychiatric ward in order to carry out forced conversion. He was later punished by law. At that time Pastor Jin, who headed up the Heresy Investigation Committee of the Christian Council of Korea (CCK), forcibly converted believers who belonged to denominations of the established church labelled so-called 'cults', including Mrs. Jeong’s. Such cases began to rise in leaps and bounds. At first, pastors carried out ‘forced conversion’ (also termed ‘deprogramming’ or ‘coercive conversion’) themselves, but later altered their approach. Today, forced conversion pastors instil fear and anxiety in the families of Shincheonji Church members by slandering Shincheonji Church, so that families are deceived into believing their beloved child, wife or parent has fallen into a ‘cult’ and are prone to making immediate hasty decisions. In order to prevent this, forced conversion programs tainted by illegal practices that include kidnap, confinement and violence become the 'last straw' to save the family. In 21st century South Korea, where issues around religious freedom have been brought to the limelight, ‘forced conversion’ continues unabated. This paper intends to serialise the distressing appeals of victims who have had to endure human rights violations and oppression through forced conversion, and are otherwise unable to voice their plea.
“Juice mixed with sleeping pills
Thug hired to kidnap me to a studio near Ansan B Church
Escaped following tip-off to the police
Parents lost all senses, paying 300 million KRW"
[Cheonji Ilbo = Reporter Kang Soo-kyung] Parents who protest for the return of their child allege that their child has fallen into a cult named Shincheonji Church which is responsible for family breakdown and encourages its congregants to run away from home, divorce their spouses and renounce their property.
However, the testimony of children who suffer coercive conversion at the hands of their parents tells a different story. They testify that they are afraid to return home because of their parents'and family members' violent behaviour.
The root cause of such division is coercive conversion which involves acts of kidnap, confinement and violence for the purposes of coercive conversion. Despite being a fully grown man, Mr. Eun-seong Joo (pseudonym) of Yuseong district, Daejeon city was dragged off to the coercive conversion programme after being drugged with sleeping pills. He suffers subsequent trauma. This is why, according to his testimony, he has been unable to return home. What follows is a full account of Mr. Joo's appeal.
It was around March 2006 when my parents received a phone call, disclosing my life of faith at Shincheonji Church. In April 2009, my father, who had been approached by an anti-Shincheonji coercive conversion pastor told me that he was going to Ansan to resolve some business issues. In reality, he went to a church in Ansan to finalise preparations for me to undergo coercive conversion.
Then in May 2009, while having breakfast with my family, my father drugged me with a sleeping pill mixed in with my daily tomato juice and I fell asleep. While asleep, I felt someone’s touch and awoke to find that my mobile phone had been taken.
I told myself I had to leave home, so I started washing with the intention of making my way to the library. My father offered to drive me there enroute to his workplace and my younger brother to school. I was sure that they had wanted to get me onto the coercive conversion programme so I declined. That’s when my father and a hired escort who grabbed and pushed me into the car, telling me I had to visit my mother-in-law. I resisted and tried to escape but I was physically drained due to the aftereffects of the sleeping pills. I was overpowered by this thug who had nothing to do with my family. I later learned that he was hired, upon the instruction of a ‘conversion evangelist’, to ensure I was physically taken to the coercive conversion programme.
Enroute to Ansan, I thought about the many different ways of getting out of there, but my parents had blocked every possible escape. They had been severely manipulated. Desperate to relieve myself, I was even given a glass bottle to urinate in in front of my family.
We arrived in Ansan where I was physically dragged into a studio. The keylock was removed from the inside so that there was no way for me to escape. From morning to evening, I was confined on a mattress with my family and a stranger seated around me.
After a short while, a coercive conversion pastor named 'Pastor Joo' came in and my parents left for the kitchen. I refused to consent to the conversion programme until he told my parents there was no use, and left.
A short while later, my parents and the hired thug came in and began screaming at me as a means of getting me on to the coercive conversion programme. They told me that I was stubborn for not listening to them and was a 'child of Satan'. They hurled insults at me and told me not to allow myself to be deceived. This continued on for a while.
In such a situation, I was then taken to the local Ansan District police station by police officers following a tip-off. To my horror, the police told me to undergo coercive conversion. I asked the police to remain neutral and listen to my testimony, but they continued to side with my family, asking me why my parents would resort to such measures if it weren’t for valid reasons.
After being left with my parents, I managed to escape and returned to Daejeon city.
Dear Readers - this is the reality of freedom of religion in Korea.
However, even though I returned to Daejeon, I was unable to enter the house because of certain personal threats, and during that period, my parents kept in touch with coercive conversion pastors and evangelists. They also ordered my parents to transfer 300 million KRW (c.£1900) from my account into my father's account as payment for me to undergo coercive conversion. Moreover, my mother gave up her daytime job and distributed leaflets and pamphlets, acting as a picket with false allegations that my church was responsible for carrying out acts of confinement, runaway, forced leave of absence from work and studies and violence in full vie of the public. This was all carried out according to conversion pastors’ instructions.
Coercive conversion has torn a once loving family home to pieces, sowing deep seeds of mistrust and suspicion. During the few days after my experience, I stayed up all night in fear that I might be dragged away again while sleeping. I developed an obsessive compulsive disorder, fearing that I was being followed outdoors wherever I went.
In order to prevent the same damage inflicted on others in future, please severely punish these ‘pastors’ and ‘evangelists’ before a court of law. They are violent people who destroy families through manipulation and lies.
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Cases of Coercive Conversion (also known as 'Forced Conversion' or 'Deprogramming')
Admitted to a Psychiatric Ward Because of My Faith at Shincheonji - Where Are My Rights?
Abducted and Confined Inside a Van for 40 Hours – “Conversion Pastor Even Took My Kids Away”
⇨http://noahbrown1984.blogspot.com/2021/01/abducted-and-confined-inside-van-for-40.html
⇨http://noahbrown1984.blogspot.com/2021/01/abducted-and-confined-inside-van-for-40.html
Cancer Patient Abducted and Forced to Undergo Coercive Conversion at Protestant Church in Korea