1975: Eight South Korean pro-democracy activists
April 9th, 2008 Headsman
At dawn on this date in 1975, the South Korean dictatorship hanged eight pro-democracy activists, the day after the Korean Supreme Court had approved their spurious conviction as agents of the fictitious “People’s Revolutionary Party”.
The eight, Woo Hong-seon, Song Sang-jin, Seo Do-won, Ha Jae-wan, Lee Su-byeong, Kim Yong-won, Doh Ye-jong and Yeo Jeong-nam, were tortured by the Korean CIA into admitting affiliation with this organization supposedly collaborating with the Communist North.
They were among numerous opponents of South Korean strongman Park Chung-hee rounded up for protesting against the legal codification of outright dictatorship in the early 1970’s.
Early last year, a South Korean court officially ruled that they had been wrongly executed, and awarded their surviving family members $26 million.
According to the worldwide anti-death penalty organization Hands Off Cain, the death penalty remains on the books in South Korea but has not been employed for over a decade.
Also On This Date
Possibly Related Executions
- 1995: Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni Nine
- 1950: Milada Horáková, democrat and feminist
- 1952: Night of the Murdered Poets
Entry Filed under: 20th Century, Activists, Capital Punishment, Death Penalty, Execution, Hanged, History, Intellectuals, Korea, Mass Executions, Notable Jurisprudence, Posthumous Exonerations, Power, Ripped from the Headlines, South Korea, Torture, Treason, Wrongful Executions
You read it here first:
Leave a Comment
Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed