KMHC
Kim Keun-tae Memorial Healing Center "Soom"
INTRODUCTION
The Kim Keun-Tae Memorial Healing Center, located in Seoul, South Korea, provides trauma healing for torture victims, focusing on their psychological rehabilitation. The center is named after the well known Korean human rights activist, Kim Keun-Tae, who was a recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award and was also a prisoner of conscience supported by Amnesty International. Kim has been a symbol of torture survivor in Korea. His death at the age of 62 reminded Korean society of the civil duty to support torture victims. This led to the founding of the Kim Keun-Tae Memorial Healing Center.
▲Kim Keun-Tae Memorial Healing Center in Seoul, South Korea
l Mission
Kim Keun-tae Memorial Healing Center is to support victims of violence to recover from their trauma.
We provide the comprehensive physical, mental and psychological services to victims.
We help the victims to regain their dignity in their life.
l What We Do
- Client Service: We provide the comprehensive physical, mental, psychological services for victims.
- Training: We provide training programs for health workers who work for victims of violation. Programs focus on preventing secondary victimization and building a trust-based relationship between patients and health workers.
- Research: We conduct research on the psychological effects of state violence.
CLIENT SERVICE
l Trauma Healing Program
- The purpose of trauma healing Program is to support victims’ rehabilitation. With the intervention of health workers, torture victims overcome their experiences of violence. Trauma healing programs focus on building trust between victims and health wordkers so that they feel safe to speak out their experiences.
- Trauma healing program begins with individual consultation. Based on physical symptoms and psychological evaluation, we discuss to plan the following steps. When it is allowed, victims participate in the group sessions of 6 to 8 members. So far, the KMHC have held 7 group sessions with torture survivors.
l Participants of Trauma Healing Program
- Trauma healing programs in KMHC are for torture victims in Korea. Most of torture victims were labeld as "Reds", which was directly translated to "North Korean spies". They had suffered not only from torture itself but also from the extreme rejection of the whole society for tens of years. For the majority of those who have participated in, trauma healing program in the KMHC was the first therapeutic intervention in 30-40 years.
l Staffs of Trauma Healing Program
- Support team for trauma healing program is composed of case managers, psychologists, psychiatrists, physicians. According to situations, lawyers support the retrials for those who challenge the false charges agaist themselves.
SPECIAL EVENTS
l 26 June Campaign, 2015
The events to honor the International Day in Support of Victims of torture on 25th of June, 2015 of the KMHC in Seoul, South Korea
The KMHC organized events to honor the International Day in Support of Victims of torture on 25th of June, 2015. Much of the events highlighted an award ceremony for the torture survivor and a traditional performance “Pansori"(Pan means "a place where many people gathered" and Sori means "sound") by a group of torture survivors. The survivors have practiced it for this day for the last six months. The performance became an opportunity to raise their own voices in public, which Korean society had hardly heard before.
They performed the Pansori (Korean traditional style of singing allows audience to talk part in the performance by corresponding with sounds like 'wow', 'very good') "Four Season of Life" which is similar to the western musical in the main hall of KMHC. Learning music together in a safe place, the survivors and their family members shared the sense of solidarity, getting out of social isolation. That was a good tool to guide for the rehabilitation and to heal their wounded lives.
▲Performance of "Pansori" : Fifteen torture survivors gave sing and dance at the event of International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.
The performers were overwhelmed with fun on the stage washing away the scars of their heart and it touched the 200 audience deeply and told the greatness of human will to the rehabilitation.
l 26 June Campaign, 2014
On 25th of June 2014, the KMHC honored the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture and its first anniversary in Seoul, South Korea. Focusing on psychological rehabilitation of victims of torture, the KMHC claimed to fight against impunity for the real recovery of survivors. Around 200 people including the torture victims and their supporters attended the 26 June events.
* Testimonials of Torture Survivor
Five victims of torture gave speeches about their individual torture experiences and its impact on their lives. Labeled as “Reds”, which directly translated to "North Korean spies", the victims had suffered not only from torture itself but also from the extreme rejection of the whole society. They had to hide from the eyes of others, isolating themselves from the society. All five have participated in the KMHC’s trauma healing programs, and for most of them it was the first therapeutic intervention in last 30-40 years.
▲Testimonial Dialogue of Torture Survivor : Five victims of torture gave speeches about their individual torture experiences and its impact on their lives.
What was noteworthy during the testimonial dialogue was the role of medical professionals in the torture scene.
“3-4people came to the interrogation room where I was, but always one or two did not directly harm on me. They just observed me, leaning against the wall. They were doctors. They checked my body condition so that they could adjust the degree of torture.“
The intervention of health workers in torture has been an open secret in Korea. However, their existence was not yet publicly acknowledged and no one was accused or punished for their medical complicity. It certainly needed a lot of courage to speak out their hurts on the public stage. They told they felt safety during the trauma healing program and, in conseqnce, they could speak out their voices on their experiences.
▲Lee Seong-hee, the awardee of the appreciation plaque : The plaque served as an appreciation for his effort to bring justice on other torture victims.
After the dialogue, Lee Seong-hee, one of the five, was awarded an appreciation plaque. Accused as a spy, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. When he was released with a special pardon, he requested a retrial on his case and did not give up on proving his innocence. Finally in 2012, the court declared him "not guilty" after 38 years. Following his precedence, 18 people who had been accused with him in past have been proven innocent as well. The plaque served as an appreciation to him for his hard work to bring justice on other torture victims.
* Performance against Impunity
A group of eleven survivors and their families staged a performance which satirized impunity in current Korean situation. This performance imitated the play “The Flower in the Wounded- Uleung 1974”. The main theme of this play was the recovery of people who were fabricated as spies in Uleung in the year 1974, the first clients of the KMHC’s trauma healing program. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the case and the “not guilty” sentence in retrials, the KMHC organized the play and invited torture survivors, many of whom were comforted by the similar stories of others. With around 8,000 in the audience and 180 cameo appearances by the survivors and their supporters, the play aroused massive public empathy. The performers of this evening chose to share the message of the play, the recovery by the remembrance of what had happened before.
Making a parody of the play, they humorously criticized the current situation in Korea. Two characters regarded their perpetration of torture as part of their lofty patriotism, full of pride. They were the reflects of the perpetrators, living high off the hog, not punished at all with only 7 years of the statute of the limitations applied to the crime of torture. The curtain dropped with the poem, “And they came back”, which was taken from the famous poetic statement by Martin Niemoeller, “First they came”. The message was strong; Human rights abuses are quite possible to happen again if we stop investigating and speaking out against human atrocities.
▲Performance of "And They Came Back": The torture victims and their families played “First they came”, the famous poetic statement by Martin Niemoeller.
* To share with more people
To reach public civilians who did not attend this event, the KMHC distributed a brochure which includes;
- The report on the psychological condition of the torture victims in Korea conducted by the KMHC in 2013
- The report on the evaluation of trauma healing program in the KMHC
- The Torture Act, which stops the pardon and decriminalization of torture crime, which was submitted years ago but still at a standstill in the national Assembly; and a thesis regarding the need to punish the perpetrators for preventing recurrence.
- The KMHC's statement calling for the rehabilitation of victims, establishing the truth, and nullification of the statute oflimitations in torture crime cases. This statement was passed onto the media to reach more audience.
* For our Ultimate Goal
The current president of Korea, Park Geun-Hye, is the daughter of the brutal dictator Park Chung-Hee who encroached upon the citizen freedom of thought during his tyranny 18 year rule. Apprehension that the human rights can be endangered again exists and, unfortunately, it seems that it is not just an irrational worry. The judges and prosecutors, who condoned tortures during the dictatorship, are now Park’s aides, holding powers in legal and political circles. Their power adversely affects the retrials. What is more surprising is that the exact identical fabrication case ha just happened again, in 2014.
Although torture is not committed as commonly as it was in 1970’s, 80’s anymore here in Korea, numerous victims who struggle to survive without support have gone unknown in society. Moreover, human rights abuses and state violence in other forms still remains. Through 26 June campaign, the KMHC strengthened its mission for the establishment of truth, rehabilitation of the victims of state violence and the ultimate goal of the world without tortures.
▲ Finishing the events : Around 200 people including the torture victims and their supporters attended the 26 June events.
l The play, "The Flower that blossomed in the Wounded"
In Spring 2014, the Kim Keun-tae Healing Center sponsored a play, "The Flower that blossomed in the Wounded".
The play was about the recovery of torture survivors who were accused of being spies and were subject to torture as consequence- they were also the first participants of the trauma healing progrma in the KMHC. These torture victims have suffered not only from torture itself but also from the rejection from society, labeled as "spies from North Korea." It was not until 40 years later that they were able to challenge the false charges against them. In Commemoration of their recent victory from the retrial, the KMHC helped bring their stories through the sponsorship of the play.
Perfomed over the duration of two months, the play "The Flower that blossomed in the Wounded" drew 8,000 audiences. Torture survivors, their families and supporters from various fiedls mad cameo appearacnes on the stage. The audience laughed and cried throughout the play, empahtizing with the life stories of torture survivors. Such reaction from the audience conveyed that the survivors are no longer subject to contempt from society, but have earned sympahty and support instead. This chage offered torture survivors deep solace and encouragement. The play signaled another step towards social justice for Korea .
▲ The audience : During two months, around 8,000 people came to the play.
▲ Messages from the audience of the play to Torture Survivors : People wrote their short impression after they watch the play. They wrote that they felt sorry for their indifference to the torture survivors, admired powerful resilience of the survivors and promised to support survivors’ rehabilitation.