Hyunmo Choi (CEO of the Migrant Workers’ Human Rights Solidarity)
Let’s point out random intermittent behavior, doere Immigration Act deformation attempts
obvious discrimination legislation on foreigners to hold unconditional deulinda If in doubt,
mutual respect and protect human rights efforts. Malppun
to celebrate the open agency for the past 2 July the Ministry of Justice Immigration Division, Foreign Policy At the meeting, Minister Kim Seong-ho said, “The Ministry of Justice will do its best to create a social environment where citizens and foreigners can live together while respecting each other’s cultures and traditions.” Director Chu Gyu-ho said on the website, “The Immigration and Foreigners Policy Headquarters will do its best to achieve an advanced society of freedom and common prosperity, where foreigners can freely live in harmony with the people and everyone can prosper together.”
A month later, as they began to crack down on migrant workers, the Immigration and Foreigners Policy Headquarters said, “We will do our best to protect basic human rights even for foreigners who have been arrested, as well as comply with due process so that there are no cases of human rights violations during the crackdown process.” said. In summary, the Ministry of Justice’s Immigration and Foreigners Policy Headquarters will do its best to ‘observe due process and protect human rights’ in crackdown by creating ‘a society in which foreigners respect each other, live together, and achieve common prosperity in free harmony’.
But the reality was completely different. Only the ‘arrests and detentions and random crackdowns regardless of time and place’ repeated over the past few years continued. The human rights of migrant workers were horribly violated. The enforcement team that does not even present an ID card, let alone the issuance of an emergency protection letter, which is the basis for crackdowns under the current law, is a human rights organization such as midnight, dawn, street, factory, dormitory, church, registered or unregistered, and any foreigner is caught. rushed to see. The number of migrant workers who were assaulted while resisting the unconditional arrest of the crackdown team and were seriously injured while trying to escape by surprise intrusion into a house is numerous. The ‘best efforts for mutual respect, free harmony, observance of due process and protection of human rights’, as said by the chief executive officer in charge of the Korean government’s foreign policy, are nowhere to be found.
In fact, the ‘best effort’ of the Ministry of Justice’s Immigration and Foreigners Policy Headquarters was elsewhere. Migrant workers who suffered serious damage in the crackdown process sought relief for their human rights violations through legal proceedings, and labor, human rights and social movement groups including migrant workers’ human rights groups across the country pointed out the anti-human rights of the enforcement actions, the Ministry of Justice I did my best and made the worst choice. On November 8, the Ministry of Justice made a notice of legislation to amend the Immigration Control Act. According to the contents, a new provision of the law has been newly established to unconditionally arrest anyone ‘when in doubt’ anytime and anywhere, to go anywhere to investigate and search for data, and once caught, they will be detained without any external judicial control until they are exhausted and leave. If the Immigration Control Team refuses to investigate, access, and submit documents because there is no warrant issued by the court, they will be punished by imprisonment or imprisonment with labor for not more than three years or a fine of not more than 20 million won.
The best efforts of the Ministry of Justice’s Immigration and Foreigners Policy Headquarters do not stop there. On November 27th, 20 days after the notice of the amendment to the law was given, the leadership of the Migrant Workers’ Union, including Chairman Haman, 3 After arresting and detaining the prisoners at once, they secretly expelled all three as if they were conducting a surprise operation at dawn on December 13th. As for their arrest and detention, the National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) is currently investigating the suppression of workers’ union activities and targeted crackdowns. With the imminent risk of deportation, the defense counsel had expressed their intention to file a lawsuit several times, but this was also ignored.
Two years ago, the National Human Rights Commission of Korea told the Minister of Justice, “The authority, requirements, and procedures for compulsory crackdown and detention of illegally resident aliens, etc. Regarding the restrictive measures, a substantive supervisory system has been established at a level equivalent to that of criminal justice procedures,” and “The Constitution also adopts the principle of warrant as a constitutional principle to prevent human rights violations against individual liberty, etc.” “It is impossible to justify trespassing by expanding the interpretation of the Immigration Control Act on the grounds that it is purposeful for the administrative actions of immigration officials,” he said, and recommended improvement.
However, as of December 2007, not to mention that the human rights of migrant workers have been thrown to the floor, the authority of the National Human Rights Commission of Korea has been ‘chewed away’ by the Ministry of Justice. Afterwards, the National Human Rights Commission of Korea expressed regret to the Ministry of Justice, saying in a statement that “the forcible deportation of the victims who were under investigation as they saw the possibility of crackdown on targets as high as possible would hinder the investigation,” but this is also highly likely to be ignored.
Articles 12 and 16 of the Constitution of the Republic of Korea stipulate the observance of due process and the principle of warrant for restrictions on freedom of body and freedom of residence. In addition, in the case of an unintentional inspection under the Police Officer Duties Act, it is strictly stipulated that the police officer must present his/her ID, affiliation and name, purpose and reason, and the place of accompaniment, and if the party refuses, a warrant issued by the court shall be presented. In light of this, the attempt to amend the Immigration Control Act promoted by the Ministry of Justice is a legislative act that clearly discriminates against foreigners and is a direct violation of the constitutional guarantee of basic human rights. In the same vein, the surprise expulsion of the three migrant union leaders is unconstitutional, completely ignoring the constitutional ‘right to request a trial’ and ‘right to receive the assistance of an attorney’, which are recognized even in the current legal system.
However, despite numerous issues raised over the past decade, Korea takes for granted the insensitivity of migrant workers as far as human rights and labor rights are concerned. What is more deplorable is that the Korean government, which produced the Secretary-General of the United Nations that declared the international guarantee of human rights and which advocates for an advanced human rights state in the 21st century, has tolerated such ‘unconstitutional’ and ‘illegal’ and made it clear that it will continue to do so in the future. will be.
In 2005, the National Human Rights Commission of Korea decided that ‘there is a possibility of illegality, but as a result, crackdown on undocumented foreigners is legal’, despite legal experts raising a problem about illegal acts during the crackdown process by Anwar Migrant Union Chairman. The same was the case with the government’s attitude, which excluded seven key reasons for non-discrimination, including ‘national origin and language’, from the ‘Anti-Discrimination Act’ supervised by the Ministry of Justice, which passed the cabinet meeting a while ago, leaving behind the protests of the groups. The majority of labor, human rights, and social groups across the country protested, but to no avail. In the end it was ‘chewed’. I think the power of the Justice Department is good.
On December 18, the UN-designated ‘World Migrants’ Day’ immigration crackdown team warned activists of human rights groups who protested, ‘What procedures are needed to catch illegal immigrants?’ If this is the case, the ‘Immigration Control Act Amendment Bill’ announced by the Immigration and Foreigners Policy Headquarters of the Ministry of Justice will be passed without any hesitation and will be confirmed as a government bill. It is frustrating.
In that case, wouldn’t it be better to call it the ‘Ministry of Justice’s Foreign Discrimination Headquarters’?