By Kwon Mee-yoo
Staff reporter
Recent videotaping of suspects involved in physical violence with police officers at a Seoul detention center is considered to be an infringement of their human rights, according to civic groups Sunday.
But police say that it was necessary for them to videotape "violent" suspects to help establish order in the holding cells.
Last Friday evening, Seoul Seocho Police Station detained six people supporting a progressive biweekly newspaper, "Left 21," for violating laws on assembly and demonstration.
According to the police, they held a rally criticizing the government for about two hours near Gangnam Station in southern Seoul.
However, the newly-established newspaper said they were just ordinary citizens promoting Left 21.
"Our paper is a legal periodical. It is not a free paper but a newspaper that people pay for," the group said on its Web site, adding the pickets were intended to increase the public awareness of the paper.
It then argued that what the police considered a 'political chant' was just a slogan to publicize the paper.
One day after being taken to the police station, the toilet in the detention center was broken, causing a conflict between the detainees and the police.
The detainees wanted to use the public bathroom outside the cell and the police did not allow them to do so.
When the detainees requested forms to file a petition with the National Human Rights Commission in protest, police officers provided only some of the documents and did not seal the document envelope before mailing it, they claimed.
In protest, the detainees became violent and the police filmed them with a camcorder. After human rights groups complained, the police stopped recording Saturday afternoon.
"We record unusual scenes with camcorders from time to time as there is a blind spot on our closed-circuit television (CCTV). Since the detention center is a place of investigation for criminal suspects, their rights could be restricted there when necessary," a police officer said.
However, civic groups retorted "the police can intervene in situations, including an escape attempt. Otherwise, the videotaping is a clear infringement of human rights. Particularly when they threaten detainees protesting for their human rights," an activist of the Korean Catholic Human Rights Committee said.