The NHRC Holds a Human Rights Educational Program for Police, Prison Officials, and Prosecutors (09-12-2002)
Since September 2002, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has been organizing a human rights educational tour aimed at policemen, prison officials and prosecutors. The lecturers include members from the Lawyers for a Democratic Society, as well as professors, NGO activists, and members of the NHRC. Among the 110 lecturers are such individuals as: Yon chul Park, vice president of the Lawyers for a Democratic Society; In-hee Kim, executive secretary of the Reunion Committee at Citizen"s Coalition for Economic Justice (a lawyer); Byung-jik Cha, a lawyer Uyi-gi Shin, head of office at the International Criminal Law Research Department at the Criminal Studies Research Center; Bok-hee Chang, a professor of law at Seoul National University; Song-don Kim, professor of law at Songgyungwan University; and Wan-ho Oh, secretariat at Amnesty International Korean Division.
The lectures for the police men--approximately 1,000--will begin in September and end in November.The lectures will give various kinds of information such as: how to prevent human rights violations during the course of investigation, the scope of the Commission"s investigations, and patterns of human rights violations.The Commission is planning to hold additional lectures for those police men at the branch offices in the future.
Since last May, the NHRC has established a human rights lecture course, and has been negotiating with related institutions.As a result, police force educating institutionssuch as the Choong-ang Police Academy, the Police Investigation Research Institute and the Police Universityhave requested a total of 218 hours of training (82 lectures), and the Legal Research and Training Institute (LRTI) has requested a total of 20 hours of training (10 lectures).In the meantime, in regards to the NHRC request that the LRTI include a human rights course in training the prosecutors, the LRTI has answered that it is "in the process of looking into the proposal."NHRC is currently negotiating with the LRTI to achieve this end.
Also, the NHRC is preparing a human rights education course for soldiers, and is also negotiating with related institutions to initiate or expand human rights courses for public servants in 2003.
From 26 November 2001 to 30 August 2002, a total of 2,550 complaints have been made to the NHRC. Among these, 80.5% (2,053 cases) were human rights violation cases: 35.3% (724 cases) by institutions, 29.2% (599 cases) by detention facilities comprised of police forces, and 12.4% (254 cases) by prosecutors.
