NHRC Issues Recommendation to Justice Minister:
Amend “Guidelines on Inmate Access to Print Media” and
Specify Restricted-Access Articles
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) found that confinement institutions’ practice of cutting articles out of newspapers that inmates have subscribed to at their own expense before delivering them, as well as the practice of restricting inmates’ out-of-pocket newspaper subscriptions to no more than 1 newspaper of each type per person (2 of each type for persons in solitary cells) violated inmates’ right to information, and the Commission issued a recommendation to the Minister of Justice to reform the Guidelines on Inmate Access to Print Media to allow inmates to subscribe to a reasonable number of newspapers and magazines, and for the Ministry to expressly stipulate that only articles—such as articles on prison breaks and collective hunger strikes in prison—that contain the concrete possibility of directly disturbing prison security and order can be considered restricted, and thereby removable, before newspaper delivery to inmates. The recommendation follows a complaint petitioned by Mr. Kwon, 31, and four other inmates between January and April 2003 against the Minister of Justice charging that the current guidelines violate their right to information.
The complainants came to petition the NHRC after Mr. Kwon, then incarcerated at Kwangju Correctional Institute, 3 fellow inmates, and Mr. Oh, 56, incarcerated at Masan Correctional Institute, were delivered newspapers—Donga Daily (13 January 2003 edition,) the Hankyoreh (1 March 2003 edition,) and the Kwangju Daily (7 April 2003 edition)—they had subscribed to at their own expense with select articles cut out. Mr. Oh had also charged in his complaint that the regulations limiting inmates’ print media subscriptions to one newspaper of each type per person (2 for those in solitary cells) violated his right to information.
