TORTURES IN KOREA.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLIV, Issue 14007, 11 March 1920, Page 1

TORTURES IN KOREA.

' TOKYO, December 6. The efforts of the new Japanese administration of Korea to recover the confidence of the Korean people are largely nullified by official maltreatment of Koreans. While the use of a paddle as a flogging instrument is publicly abolished by the Government, police officials regularly use torture in the examination of suspects. The following particulars of the methods employed are furnished to me by Dr Frank Schofield, of the Severance 3lission Hospital, Seoul:—

Case 1. C.. an educated young man. punished with ninety blows of) the paddle for complicity in the independence movement and released after six weeks' imprisonment, was re-arrested and questioned'with regard to the bomb .that was ihrown at Admiral Saito. During the police examination he was seven times suspended - from the ceiling' by a cord tied round the •wrists* on five -occasions his head was forced bank and tied "to his hands, which had been fastened behind his back;- water was poured down his -nostrils off and on during a. period of four days, and for a further period of three days soap and water was substituted for plain water. As a last expedient in this line pepper tea was used; the reaction Was so severe that the man became comatose. All these methods having failed, the police ordered his toe nails to be extracted. The Korean torturer instead pulled.out a piece of fies'a from the inside of the small toe which caused profuse bleeding, and satisfied the police, j Case 2. A young man charged with printing the "Independence" newspaper refused to give the. names of his accomplices. He was beaten unconscious three times an six days, and once- burntwith red-hot irons.

One result of such methods is net-.:ral-ly the. production of false evir7oii.ee and the prosecution of innocent people. Another is the creation of a. conviction in the Korean mind that promises of reform are for foreign consumption only mid that there is no hope of their condition being iurujioi.ited undei Japanese rule. Such are the evil results of ten veais of niihtm ink

The Japanese Cml Gouuininn esmceioly de«rou- of iedies<-mg the m-HT-tices from which Lhe Koieins suriei but is hmdicapned b*, the piece dents esu i Wished and the officialdom t retted dtuinor Ihe jnihni\ legimc Uii'less and unul th« pc sitioti i<= lachcalh changed. Korea will be. a serious source of weiknes*- to Japan