유월민주항쟁 33주년... 남영동대공분실에서 있었던 일<br /><br />The very site where President Moon delivered his address has a painful, atrocious history of its own.<br />Our Kim Do-yeon files this report from the former police investigation building in Seoul.<br />Now known as Democracy and Human Rights Memorial Hall, this building in Seoul's Namyeong-dong was once used to directly suppress those principles.<br />This used to be a police investigations building during the dictatorship of the 1980s.<br />Anyone the police wanted to question for so-called "pro-communist activities" would be brought here.<br />In through a secretive back door and up a spiral staircase that led to the fifth floor directly, individuals were brought here for interrogation through torture.<br />One event in particular started to unite people against the dictatorship.<br />In January of 1987, a Seoul National University student died after being tortured by waterboarding... causing fury among the people.<br />"This is where the true dark side of dictatorship was revealed. The public thought to themselves that they cannot allow a government that kills innocent young students. That was one of the sparks that ignited the June Pro-Democracy Movement."<br />"The body was wet... there was a bathtub in the room.’ That's what the doctor who came to examine the body of Park Jong-cheol said to a journalist."<br />While the doctor only laid out the facts that he saw, it caused a national fury.<br />His words clarified some of the hidden cruelties that the government imposed on its citizens, and that was one of the driving forces behind the June 10 Pro-Democracy Movement.<br />Today, the doctor says he was just doing his job.<br />"My perspective is as a doctor. Democracy is important, but to me… if such deaths reoccurred, it would be like a disease, so I had the responsibility to stop it"<br />What happened in June 1987, and the events leading up to then, shaped the course of Korea's history.<br />In response to the citizens' efforts, the government finally decided to amend the constitution... allowing citizens to directly vote for the president... and, most importantly, have their basic rights protected.<br />Kim Do-yeon, Arirang News<br />
