NHRC issues recommendation to Hwaseong Immigration Processing Center director for HIPC staff related to incident to receive human rights education
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) found that “videotaping people without legitimate reason, even if the person is a migrant awaiting deportation in an immigration processing center, violates privacy rights guaranteed under article 17 of the Constitution.” The ruling follows a complaint filed against the Hwaseong Immigration Processing Center director in November 2002 by a Nigerian migrant, Mr. A, 26, and 3 others who charged that “our basic rights were infringed when, while being held at an immigration processing center, we were repeatedly videotaped for utterly arbitrary reasons.”
The NHRC issued a recommendation to the Hwaseong Immigration Processing Center (HIPC) director to rectify the situation to prevent recurrence and for the HIPC staff involved to attend a special human rights education course supervised by the NHRC.
The complaint originated in October 2002, when HIPC, a facility for temporarily holding undocumented migrants right before they are forcibly deported from Korea, began, with no legitimate reason, to film the migrants under HIPC charge. Four of the migrants subject to such videotaping, including Mr. A, raised the issue with the NHRC, stating, “their taking visual images of us violated our rights.”
The HIPC responded to the complaint filed against them by claiming, “we videotaped the migrants because we wanted to have solid evidence relating to the frequent cases of gambling and fights that break out and because there are many cases in which migrants held in our center do not participate in the morning and evening roll call.”
The NHRC investigation found the facts of the case to be as follows. The HIPC videotaped the migrants on the evening of 7 October 2002 and both morning and evening of 8 October 2002 in the absence of any particular problems or issues. Although Mr. A raised his objections to illegitimate videotaping on the evening of October 8th, the staff filmed him again the morning of October 9th. Additionally, in the course of the NHRC investigation, the HIPC staff related to the incident revealed that after October 7th there had been no incidents or accidents disturbing the order and discipline of the center, that their facility had been allotted a video camera on October 7th and they wanted to test out the new video camera so they filmed the migrants held in HIPC custody.
Based on the facts of the case, the NHRC found that, “even though the migrants had not been causing any particular problems, the taking of their physical images on videotape without legitimate reason, even if the persons being taped have the official status of having ‘illegally overstayed their visa,’ is not acceptable behavior and is a violation of their rights.”
The complainants had also filed charges of cruel treatment in their complaint. However, the NHRC found that the charges were either unsubstantiated or that the behavior referred to was within the realm of legitimate law enforcement. Thus, the latter part of the petition was rejected.
