Civic groups appeal ban on books sent to prisons

A member of Lawyers for a Democratic Society, or Minbyun, files a constitutional appeal at the Constitutional Court office, Wednesday, regarding the justice ministry's ban on books sent to prisons. / Korea Times photo by Lee Suh-yoon

By Lee Suh-yoon

Yang Yeo-ok, a member of anti-war civic group Without War, has been assisting jailed conscientious objectors since 2005, visiting them regularly and supplying them with things that could make their 18-month confinement more bearable. So she often brought in books, which provided a rare link to the outside world for detainees.

Some participated in Without War's book clubs, sending their book reviews to the group via letters carried by messengers like Yang.

Song Sang-yun, a jailed conscientious objector and one of the plaintiffs in the constitutional appeal against the justice ministry's ban on book packages sent to inmates. / Courtesy of Without War

On Nov. 27, Yang paid one of her regular visits to Song Sang-yun, a conscientious objector detained in Uijeongbu Detention Center since August. The guards, however, refused to deliver her books to Song. The books she brought that day included the well-known “Kim Ji-young, Born 1982” and a religious handbook by a local Catholic priest.

“They did not even inspect the books. They just kept repeating the rules had changed,” Yang told reporters in a press conference outside the Constitutional Court on Thursday.

The change followed a justice ministry announcement Nov. 11 saying it would ban private book deliveries to detention facilities. Instead, inmates must give a specific list of desired books to the prison authorities every two weeks and purchase them through the prison's partner seller, according to Song. The change bars inmates from accessing cheaper secondhand books or online discounts, not to mention books that have gone out of print.

“There is a problem with this new system,” Song said in a letter he later sent Yang. “Many detainees are giving up reading because they don't want to financially burden their families or friends by asking them to charge their commissary accounts.”

On Thursday, Song and another detained conscientious objector at Gunsan Detention Center filed a constitutional appeal against the book ban through human rights lawyers at Minbyun.

“This is a violation of detainees' access to information,” said Park Han-hee, a Minbyun human rights lawyer. “Taking into account reading's educational benefits, it also goes against the correctional facilities' goal of helping inmates better adjust to society.”

Along with the constitutional appeal, the plaintiffs also filed an administrative suit against the head of Uijeongbu Detention Center and the state.

The ban could also worsen censorship at detention centers, publishers say.

“If our readers at prisons have to buy books through the prison administration, they are bound to worry about how they will look to the prison guards, and whether they would be singled out for negative treatment,” claimed Choi Jae-hun, head of Boundary, a small publishing firm.

According to Choi, the sales of Boundary's recent book on laws that protect inmates from wrongful treatment plummeted following the ministry's ban.