The voices of criticism and concern for the serious anti-human rights, anti-democratic, and dictatorship of the Moon Jae-in administration are growing not only in Korea but also in the international community following political quarantine and religious oppression using the novel Coronavirus, violating the separation of the jurisdiction and the three powers(legislative, judicial, and administrative) by removing Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl from his duties, as well as passing the Anti-North Korean Leaflet Law (amendment to the Law on the Development of Inter-Korean Relations Act), which ignores the human rights of North Koreans and suppresses the freedom of expression of Koreans unilaterally, in the National Assembly with the power to arbitrate with the ruling party. There have also been media reports that the US Congress will be holding a hearing on this. We are greatly encouraged and comforted by this move from the US Congress, and we would like to express our deepest gratitude.
The free world is gradually getting to know the reality of the Moon Jae-in administration, but it is Pastor Jun Kwang-hoon who has been at the forefront in the fight and armed with pure patriotism and the Christian faith, knowing exactly what the true nature of the Moon administration was since long ago. However, Pastor Jun Kwang-hoon is currently imprisoned under political oppression from the Moon administration. Through this letter, we would like to expose the illegal and barbaric behavior of the Moon administration towards Pastor Jun, and appeal to the free world, including the United States, for your help in releasing Pastor Jun. The free world has been striving to protect human freedom and improve human rights, especially in the US Congress, so we have no doubt that they will not turn their backs on our appeal.
The prosecution indicted Pastor Jun in violation of the Public Official Election Act due to pre-election campaigning and charged him with defamation due to defaming President Moon through remarks such as “Moon Jae-in is a spy” and “The President tried to communize the Republic of Korea.” However, Pastor Jun’s words and actions are not punishable in Korea, a free democratic country where freedom of the speech is guaranteed as a basic human right.
Nevertheless, the Moon administration is abusing the South Korean criminal justice system of investigation, indictment, and arrest for the purpose of politically suppressing Pastor Jun who has become a great threat to the preservation of their government due to the pastor’s consistent strong criticism of them denying the liberal democratic system stipulated by the Constitution and defining them as a Jusapa regime who supports North Korea’s communism and Juche ideology by holding mass rallies.
We don’t even acknowledge Pastor Jun’s criminal charges, but we can’t understand why a request for a warrant and issuance was made, in terms of escape and destruction of evidence, which are the requirements of the South Korean Criminal Procedure Code.
Pastor Jun consistently held numerous large-scale rallies in downtown Seoul to condemn the Moon administration, and as a person who became a national figure, we won’t accept that he is a flight risk, and furthermore, the police banned him from leaving the country, making it impossible for him to escape. In addition, a CCTV was illegally installed by related agencies at the pastor’s place of residence to monitor his movements, and the police were in frequent contact with him. The investigation agency itself, who knows this fact, wrote “flight risk” as the title of the warrant, and listed that Pastor Jun’s “status” and “social responsibility as a public figure”, which are ridiculous details not directly related to him being a flight risk.
The investigation agency also said that there is concern for destroying evidence, but the concerned party decides whether or not to admit to the crime, and in this regard, there is a principle of prohibition of self-incrimination. It is the obvious duty of the investigation agency to overcome these difficulties and collect evidence to prove guilt, and the attempt to arrest a suspect in the name of preserving evidence is a reversal of the truth and cannot happen in a democratic country where basic human rights of the people are guaranteed.
As such, Pastor Jun Kwang-hoon is not a possible flight risk, and the investigation agency also could not submit any justification regarding the destruction of evidence. In the end, the first warrant request was only a political oppression against Pastor Jun, and the court, who knew it better than anyone else, rejected the request after an interrogation on January 2, 2020, citing a lack of criminal charges and is not considered a flight risk.
However, the investigation agency continued with their investigation to apply for a second warrant for Pastor Jun on January 3, 2020, the day after the arrest warrant was rejected. It was to make sure that they would put Pastor Jun into prison at any cost to dampen any anti-government protest. However, the investigation agency chose to use the accusations of pro-government civic groups to start investigations to avoid accusations of suppressing basic human rights of the people by the government. In addition to this, a civil servant employed within the Seoul Election Commission also monitored all activities of Pastor Jun such as his sermons, text messages that he sent, and remarks made and circulated materials at rallies, then reported the pastor for the remarks made at the rallies.
The Jongno Police Station started an investigation using these accusations, but the close relationship between them and the investigation agency was revealed during the investigation. Usually, when a complaint is reported, the investigation agency first investigates the accuser, but the Jongno Police opened the investigation without even looking into the accuser, showing that the investigation took the form of a complaint but in reality, it was the government’s case. This indicates that the investigation into the accuser was meaningless because it was actually the Jongno Police who initiated the investigation.
And the fact that the state paid for the investigation into this case clearly shows the true nature of the case.
In the case of a common case of accusation being made, the accuser submits the evidence, and if the accuser does not submit the transcript of the recorded material, the accuser is obliged to submit it.
However, in this case, the Jongno Police spent 5.2 million won of taxpayers’ money and created evidence by writing transcripts of the case filed by Peace Tree, a pro-government civic group. Furthermore, the related documents were prepared as if the cost was for the transcript of the case filed by the NEC.
The prosecution later submitted a second arrest warrant that was 44 pages long, and
surprisingly, the court issued an arrest warrant on February 25, 2020 in response to the demands of the regime, and even rejected Pastor Jun’s request to review the legality of the warrant. This is a tyranny that can’t possibly happen in a liberal democratic country, and the courts, who must guarantee the basic human rights of the people, effectively became a puppet of the regime and committed the crime of illegal confinement.
After the prosecution indicted Pastor Jun, his lawyers requested that he be released on bail on March 25, 2020. Not only was his arrest greatly unjust, but because it was also clear that the conditions of bail were all met in this case. Moreover, his lawyers were expecting a prompt bail decision according to the law because Pastor Jun had undergone major surgery on the cervical spine in April 2018, which could be life threatening if he does not receive proper treatment and suffers from severe diabetes which requires him to get insulin injections twice a day. The court continued to postpone their decision despite repeated calls for the bail decision from the lawyers, and was finally granted bail on April 20, 2020, after the April 15 general election was held.
From the time of his arrest to his bail being granted, it can be seen that the Moon Jae-in administration used the courts to leave Pastor Jun Kwang-hoon, who was seen as the greatest obstacle for their victory in the general election, in prison during the most important time of before and after the general election. They implicitly supported the ruling party by providing the people with Coronavirus emergency cash payments while keeping Pastor Jun, who was like a thorn in their eyes, in prison, and won a landslide victory of 180 seats in the general elections. Apparently satisfied with the election result, they granted bail to Pastor Jun shortly after the general election was held.
Even though the court granted bail to Pastor Jun, unacceptable conditions were added
onto the bail. This was actually a threat to put him back in prison at any time if he doesn’t listen to them. In fact, on September 7, 2020, the court revoked the bail for violating his bail condition, forfeited his bail deposit, and put the reverend back in jail. The court believed that Pastor Jun Kwang-hoon’s remarks on the podium at the Gwanghwamun rally held in downtown Seoul on August 15, 2020 (National Liberation Day), violated the conditions of his bail. The Moon Jae-in administration tried to block the Liberation Day rally by any means necessary, such as raising concerns about the spread of the coronavirus, and despite such persistent acts of sabotage, a huge crowd gathered at this rally, thus starting their political attack. So, despite the fact that it was a rally permitted by the courts, the administration imprisoned Pastor Jun for violating his bail conditions by making a brief remark on the podium at the rally. Despite that this was, in fact, political retaliation, they arrested Pastor Jun again by raising concerns about the spread of the coronavirus through inciting and manipulating public opinion using the media.
Since then, the court dismissed both the appeal against the bail revocation and the decision to refuse bail despite the lawyers’ appeal, and Pastor Jun is still in custody at the Seoul Detention Center.
No one from a constitutional nation can exist above the law. All citizens of the Republic of Korea must obey the law, and judges, more so as people who applies and declares the law, must observe the law more strictly than anyone else. The mission of a judge is to protect the basic human rights of the people that the Constitution guarantees from tyranny of power, and in order to accomplish this, our Constitution and laws highly guarantee the independence of the judiciary, so the people respect judges who make fair judgments without political influence. However, the Korean court has already given up its role as an institution that guarantees the basic rights of the people and has become a cowardly institution that is complacent to power and public opinion, and the case of arresting the reverend symbolizes the state of the Korean courts and judges is complacent to the power that is devastating investigations and indictments of “deep-rooted evil”.
Through questioning witnesses by police officers at the Jongno Police Station, this case appeared to be a form of accusation by a civic group to suppress Pastor Jun, who criticized the administration, but the investigation agency was actually the main agent that brought the indictment based on evidence created by using taxpayers’ money, which turns out to be an example of the abuse of public power that could be possible in a free democratic country. The issuing of the warrant, indictment, bail revocation, and subsequent refusal of bail in this case clearly demonstrates that the court, which should check the abuse of this unfair power and protect the basic human rights of the people, has become a tool for such unjust oppression.
There is no administration that lasts forever. Someday, there will surely be a judgment on the tyranny of this regime. And the tip of the sword they are wielding will eventually be pointed to their neck. We, the lawyers, will now abandon our usual attitude of trusting the judiciary and devoting ourselves to the legal battle, will let the world know the truth about the political oppression and the abuse of human rights of this case and wish to fight with the conscientious forces of the world. We hope that everyone in the free world will join us. We earnestly appeal that the US Congress will also join us in our fight. Thank you.
Reverend Jun Kwang-hoon’s Letter of Plea
Dear Senators and members of Congress,
I am Reverend Jun Kwang-hoon, the chairman of the Christian Council of Korea (CCK). The Republic of Korea is a country established with the help of missionaries sent from the United States. The first missionaries, Underwood and Appenzeller, came to Korea and awoke a sleeping nation by building churches, schools and hospitals, leading the independence movement, invited our founding president, Rhee Syngman, to America to receive a doctorate from George Washington University, Harvard, and Princeton, which helped with establishing the Republic of Korea with liberal democracy, market economy, the ROK-US alliance, and introducing Christianity.
47,000 American soldiers were killed during the Korean War while fighting against communism, the US didn’t impose taxes during our economic development, and protected Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung in order to democratize the Republic of Korea, making it one of the world’s top 10 economic power.
With help from the US in establishing the Republic of Korea, it has prevented communism infiltrating Northeast Asia after World War II, and as a result, it has become the first nation that used to be a feudal state of China to completely democratize and industrialize.
Now the Republic of Korea has the opportunity to repay the help it received from the United States and the international community, but the Jusapa government of President Moon Jae-in is trying to deconstruct the Republic of Korea and separate it from the maritime free alliance with the United States, Japan and the international community created by President Rhee Syngman and is attempting to create a continental communist alliance with North Korea, China, and Russia. In response to this, 300,000 pastors and patriotic citizens representing 12 million Christians of Korea have gathered at the Gwanghwamun Plaza this past year and carried out a national resistance against Moon Jae-in’s criminal activity.
Moon Jae-in, who was on the brink of a crisis, allowed the coronavirus from China to enter and carried out a fraudulent election on April 15, and even now, under the guise of the coronavirus, suppresses the people of free democracy and has imprisoned Reverend Jun Kwang-hoon, Governor Kim Kyung-jae, and CEO Kim Soo-yeol who has led patriotic rallies. Honorable Senators and members of Congress, the United States have helped in our independence, founding of our nation, economic development, and democratization, and if you can help us once more by preventing the criminal acts of Moon Jae-in, the Republic of Korea will contribute greatly to the international order led by the US.
Please do not be deceived by the lies of the Moon administration and fully understand the true nature of his government to prevent the Republic of Korea from being constitutionalized by North Korean communism.
-Reverend Jun Kwang-hoon, representative of the National Resistance-
