Korea's Fight for Freedom

by Fred A. McKenzie

XIII

TORTURE A LA MODE

"The main thing, when you are tortured, is to remain calm."

The Korean spoke quietly and in a matter-of-fact way. He himself had suffered torture in its most severe form. Possibly he thought there was a chance that I, too, might have a personal experience.

"Do not struggle. Do not fight," he continued. "For instance, if you are strung up by the thumbs and you struggle and kick desperately, you may die on the spot. Keep absolutely still; it is easier to endure it in this way. Compel your mind to think of other things."

Torture! Who talks of torture in these enlightened days?

Let me tell you the tale of the Conspiracy Case, as revealed in the evidence given in open court, and then judge for yourself.

When the heads of the Terauchi administration had made up their minds that the northern Christians were inimical to the progress of the Japanese scheme of assimilation, they set their spies to work. Now the rank and file of spies are very much alike in all parts of the world. They are ignorant and often misunderstand things. When they cannot find the evidence they require, they will manufacture it.

The Japanese spies were exceptionally ignorant. First they made up their minds that the northern Christians were plotting against Japan, and then they searched for evidence. They attended church services. Here they heard many gravely suspicious things. There were hymns of war, like "Onward, Christian Soldiers" and "Soldiers of Christ Arise." What could these mean but that Christians were urged to become an army and attack the Japanese? Dangerous doctrines were openly taught in the churches and mission schools. They learned that Mr. McCune, the Sun-chon missionary, took the story of David and Goliath as the subject for a lesson, pointing out that a weak man armed with righteousness was more powerful than a mighty enemy. To the spies, this was nothing but a direct incitement to the weak Koreans to fight strong Japan. Mission premises were searched. Still more dangerous material was found there, including school essays, written by the students, on men who had rebelled against their Governments or had fought, such as George Washington and Napoleon. A native pastor had preached about the Kingdom of Heaven; this was rank treason. He was arrested and warned that "there is only one kingdom out here, and that is the kingdom of Japan."

In the autumn of 1911 wholesale arrests were made of Christian preachers, teachers, students and prominent church members, particularly in the provinces of Sun-chon and Pyeng-yang. In the Hugh O'Neill, Jr., Industrial Academy, in Sun-chon, one of the most famous educational establishments in Korea—where the principal had made the unfortunate choice of David and Goliath for one of his addresses—so many pupils and teachers were seized by the police that the school had to close. The men were hurried to jail. They were not allowed to communicate with their friends, nor to obtain the advice of counsel. They and their friends were not informed of the charge against them. This is in accordance with Japanese criminal law. Eventually 149 persons were sent to Seoul to be placed on trial. Three were reported to have died under torture or as the result of imprisonment, twenty-three were exiled without trial or released, and 123 were arraigned at the Local Court in Seoul on June 28, 1912, on a charge of conspiracy to assassinate Count Terauchi, Governor-General of Korea.

"The character of the accused men is significant," wrote Dr. Arthur Judson Brown, an authority who can scarcely be accused by his bitterest critics of unfriendliness to Japan. "Here were no criminal types, no baser elements of the population, but men of the highest standing, long and intimately known to the missionaries as Koreans of faith and purity of life, and conspicuous for their good influence over the people. Two were Congregationalists, six Methodists and eighty-nine Presbyterians. Of the Presbyterians, five were pastors of churches, eight were elders, eight deacons, ten leaders of village groups of Christians, forty-two baptized church members, and thirteen catechumens…. It is about as difficult for those who know them to believe that any such number of Christian ministers, elders and teachers had committed crime as it would be for the people of New Jersey to believe that the faculty, students and local clergy of Princeton were conspirators and assassins."

Baron Yun Chi-ho, the most conspicuous of the prisoners, had formerly been Vice Foreign Minister under the old Korean Government, and was reckoned by all who knew him as one of the most progressive and sane men in the country. He was a prominent Christian, wealthy, of high family, a keen educationalist, vice-president of the Korean Y.M.C.A., had travelled largely, spoke English fluently, and had won the confidence and good will of every European or American in Korea with whom he came in contact. Yang Ki-tak, formerly Mr. Bethell's newspaper associate, had on this account been a marked man by the Japanese police. He had been previously arrested under the Peace Preservation Act, sentenced to two years' imprisonment and pardoned under an amnesty. He had also previously been examined twice in connection with the charge against the assassin of Prince Ito, and twice on account of the attack made on Yi, the traitor Premier, but had each time been acquitted. "I am not very much concerned as to what happens to me now," he said, "but I do protest against being punished on a charge of which I am innocent."

The case for the prosecution was based on the confessions of the prisoners themselves. According to these confessions, a body of Koreans, in association with the New People's Society, headed by Baron Yun Chi-ho, plotted to murder General Terauchi, and assembled at various railway stations for that purpose, when the Governor-General was travelling northwards, more particularly at Sun-chon, on December 28, 1910. They were armed with ready revolvers, short swords or daggers, and were only prevented from carrying out their purpose by the vigilance of the gendarmerie.

A number of missionaries were named as their associates or sympathizers. Chief of these was Mr. McCune, who, according to the confessions, distributed revolvers among the conspirators and told them at Sun-chon that he would point out the right man by shaking hands with him. Dr. Moffett of Pyeng-yang, Dr. Underwood of Seoul, Bishop Harris, the Methodist Bishop for Japan and Korea who had long been conspicuous as a defender of the Japanese Administration, and a number of other prominent missionaries were implicated.

When the prisoners were faced by these confessions in the open court they arose, one after another, almost without exception, and declared either that they had been forced from them by sustained and intolerable torture, or that they had been reduced by torture to insensibility and then on recovery had been told by the Japanese police that they had made the confessions. Those who had assented under torture had in nearly every case said "Yes" to the statements put to them by the police. Now that they could speak, they stoutly denied the charges. They knew nothing of any conspiracy. The only man who admitted a murder plot in court was clearly demented.

The trial was held in a fashion which aroused immediate and wide-spread indignation. It was held, of course, in Japanese, and the official translator was openly charged in court with minimizing and altering the statements made by the prisoners. The judges acted in a way that brought disgrace on the court, bullying, mocking and browbeating the prisoners. The high Japanese officials who attended heartily backed the sallies of the bench.

The missionaries who, according to the confessions, had encouraged the conspirators were not placed on trial. The prisoners urged that they should be allowed to call them and others as witnesses, and they were eager to come. The request was refused. Under Japanese law, the judges have an absolute right to decide what witnesses shall, or shall not be called. The prosecuting counsel denied the charge of torture, and declared that all of the men had been physically examined and not one of them had even a sign of having been subjected to such ill-treatment Thereupon prisoners rose up and asked to be allowed to show the marks still on them. "I was bound up for about a month and subjected to torture," said one. "I have still marks of it upon my body." But when he asked permission to display the marks to the Court, "the Court," according to the newspaper reports, "sternly refused to allow this to be done."

The trial closed on August 30th, and judgment was delivered on September 21st. Six prisoners, including Yun Chi-ho and Yang Ki-tak, were sentenced to ten years' penal servitude; eighteen to seven years' penal servitude; forty to six years; forty-two to five years; and seventeen discharged.

The trial was widely reported, and there was a wave of indignation, particularly in America. The case was brought before the Court of Appeal, and Judge Suzuki, who heard the appeal, was given orders by the Government-General that he was to act in conciliatory fashion. The whole atmosphere of the Court of Appeal was different. There was no bullying, no browbeating. The prisoners were listened to indulgently, and were allowed considerable latitude in developing their defence. Let me add that both in the first and in subsequent trials, prominent Japanese counsel appeared for the prisoners, and defended them in a manner in accordance with the best traditions of the law.

The prisoners were now permitted in the Appeal Court to relate in detail how their "confessions" had been extracted from them by torture. Here are some typical passages from the evidence.

Chi Sang-chu was a Presbyterian, and a clerk by calling. He denied that he was guilty.

"All my confession was made under torture. I did not make these statements of my own accord. The police said they must know what information they wanted. They stripped me naked, tied my hands behind my back, and hung me up in a doorway, removing the bench on which I stood. They swung me, making me bump against a door, like a crane dancing. When I lost consciousness, I was taken down and given water, and tortured again when I came to.

"A policeman covered my mouth with my hand, and poured water into my nose. Again my thumbs were tied behind my back, one arm over and one under, and I was hung up by the cord tying them. A lighted cigarette was pressed against my body, and I was struck in my private parts. Thus I was tortured for three or four days. One evening, just after the meal, I was hung up again, and was told that I would be released if I confessed, but if not I would be tortured till I died. They were determined to make me say whatever they wanted. Leaving me hanging, the policemen went to sleep, and I fainted from the torture of hanging there.

"When I came to, I found myself lying on the floor, the police giving me water. They showed me a paper, which they said was the order of release for Yi Keun-tak and O Hak-su, who had confessed. If I wanted to be set at liberty I must do the same. Then they beat me again. I saw the paper and managed with difficulty to read it. It was to the effect that they did confess and promised never to do such things again.

"I was then introduced to Yi Keun-tak, who, they said, had confessed and been acquitted, and they urged me to follow Yi's example. I urged them to treat me as they had treated Yi. They told me what to confess, but as I had never heard of such things I refused, and they said they had better kill me.

"They resumed their tortures, and after two or three months, being unable to bear it any longer, I confessed all that is required."

Paik Yong-sok, a milk seller and a Presbyterian, with eleven in his family, said he had been a Christian for fifteen years and had determined only to follow the teachings of the Bible; he had never thought of assassination or considered establishing the independence of the country. Having to support a family of eleven, he had no time for such things.

He had made the confession recited by the Court, but it was under compulsion and false. "For a number of days I was tortured twice by day and twice by night. I was blindfolded, hung up, beaten. Often I fainted, being unable to breathe. I thought I was dying and asked the police to shoot me, so intolerable were my tortures. Driven beyond the bounds of endurance by hunger, thirst and pain, I said I would say whatever they wanted.

"The police told me that I was of no account among the twenty million Koreans, and they could kill or acquit me as they pleased…. Meanwhile five or six police dropped in and said, 'Have you repented? Did you take part in the assassination plots?' It was too much for me to say 'Yes' to this question, so I replied 'No.' Immediately they slapped my cheeks, stripped me, struck, beat and tormented me. It is quite beyond my power to describe the difficulty of enduring such pain."

The man paused and pointed to a Japanese, Watanabe by name, sitting behind the judges, "That interpreter knows all about it," he said, "He was one of the men who struck me." Watanabe was pointed out by other prisoners as a man who had been prominent in tormenting them.

Im Do-myong, a barber and a Presbyterian, also fell into the hands of experts at the game.

"At the police headquarters, I was hung up, beaten with an iron rod and tortured twice a day. Then I was taken into the presence of superiors, the interpreter (pointing out Watanabe, who was sitting: behind the judges) being present, and tortured again.

"My thumbs were tied together at my back, the right arm being put back over the shoulder and the left arm turned up from underneath. Then I was hung up by the cord that bound my thumbs. The agony was unendurable. I fainted, was taken down, was given torture, and when I came to was tortured again."

By the Court: "It would be impossible to hang you by your thumbs."

Prisoner: "My great toes scarcely touched the ground. Under such circumstances I was told to say the same thing at the Public Procurator's Office, and as I feared that I should be tortured there, too, I said 'Yes' to all questions."

Some variety was introduced into the treatment of Cho Tok-chan, a
Presbyterian pastor, at Chong-ju.

"The police asked me how many men took part in the attempt at Sun-chon, saying that as I was a pastor I must know all about it. They hung, beat and struck me, saying that I had taken part in the plot and was a member of the New People's Society. At last I fainted, and afterwards was unable to eat for a number of days.

"A policeman in uniform, with one stripe, twisted my fingers with a wire, so that they were badly swollen for a long time after. Then a man with two white stripes tortured me, declaring that I had taken part in the Sun-chon affair. I said that I was too busy with Christmas preparations to go anywhere, on which the policeman severely twisted my fingers with an iron rod."

Again came one of the dramatic pauses, while the prisoner pointed out a Japanese official sitting behind the judges, Tanaka by name. "The man who interpreted at that time is sitting behind you," he declared. "He knows it very well."

They extracted his confession. But it was some time before he had been able to sign it; his fingers were hurt too severely.

It was necessary, after the police examination, for prisoners to repeat their stories or confirm them before the procurator. This might originally have been intended as a protection for the prisoners. In Korea police and procurators worked together. However, steps were taken to prevent any retraction at that point.

"When I was taken to the Public Procurator's Office," continued the Presbyterian pastor, "I did not know the nature of the place, and being put in a separate room, I feared that it might be an even more dreadful place than the police headquarters. Generally, when examined at the police headquarters, my hands were free, but here I was brought up for cross-examination with my hands and arms pinioned very firmly, so I thought it must be a harder place. Moreover, an official pulled me very hard by the cords which bound my hands, which gave me excruciating pain, seeing how they had already been treated by the police."

The next prisoner, Yi Mong-yong, a Presbyterian money lender, also pointed out the proud Tanaka. He had been describing how the police kicked and struck him to make him say what they wanted. "One of them is behind you now," said he to the judges, pointing to Tanaka.

Some of the prisoners broke down while giving their evidence. Unimas described how he had been hung, beaten, stripped and tortured by the police, and again tortured in the office of the Public Procurator. "Having got so far," the reports continue, "the prisoner began to weep and make a loud outcry, saying that he had a mother who was eighty years old at home. With this pitiful scene, the hearing ended for the day."

Yi Tai-kyong was a teacher. The police reminded him that the murderer of
Prince Ito was a Christian; he was a Christian, therefore—

"They hung, beat and otherwise tormented me, until I was compelled to acknowledge all the false fabrication about the plot. The following day I was again taken into Mr. Yamana's room and again tortured with an iron rod from the stove and other things, until I had acknowledged all the false statements.

"When asked what was the party's signal, I remained silent, as I knew nothing about it. But I was tortured again, and said, 'the church bell,' that being the only thing I could think of at the time."

"I confessed to the whole prosecution story, but only as the result of torture, to which I was submitted nine times, fainting on two occasions, and being tortured again on revival," said Pak Chou-hyong. "I made my false confession under a threat that I and my whole family would be killed. I reiterated it at the Public Procurator's Office, where I was conducted by two policemen, one of them a man with a gold tooth, who boxed my ears so hard that I still feel the pain, and who told me not to vary my story.

"Fearing that my whole family would be tortured, I agreed. But when I arrived before the Public Procurator, I forgot what I had been taught to say, and wept, asking the officials to read what I had to confess. This they did, and I said, 'Yes, yes.'"

Choi Che-kiu, a petty trader, repudiated his confession of having gone with a party to Sun-chon.

"Had such a large party attempted to go to the station," he said, "they must infallibly have been arrested on the first day. Were I guilty I would be ready to die at once. The whole story was invented by officials, and I was obliged to acquiesce in it by severe torture. One night I was taken to Nanzan hill by two policemen, suspended from a pine tree and a sharp sword put to my throat. Thinking I was going to be killed, I consented to say 'Yes' to any question put to me."

"No force can make you tell such a story as this, unless you consent voluntarily," interposed the Court.

"You may well say that," replied the prisoner, grimly. "But with the blade of a sword in my face and a lighted cigarette pressed against my body, I preferred acquiescence in a story, which they told me that Kim Syong had already confessed, to death."

The prisoner paused, and the Judge looked at him with his head on one side. Suddenly the prisoner burst into a passion of weeping, with loud, incoherent cries.

In the previous trial one of the prisoners, Kim Ik-kyo, was asked why he admitted all the facts at his preliminary examination. "If the police were to go down Chong-no (one of the busiest streets in Seoul)," he replied, "and indiscriminately arrest a number of passers-by, and then examine them by putting them to torture, I am sure they would soon confess to having taken part in a plot."

The same thing was put in another way by a prisoner, Kim Eung-pong. He related a long story of torture by binding, hanging, beating and burning, continued for fifteen days, during which he was often threatened with death. Then he was taken to the "supreme enquiry" office of the police headquarters, where he was stripped naked and beaten with an iron bar from the stove. This office, he understood, had control and power of life or death over the whole peninsula, so he was compelled to confess all that they wanted. "I even would have said that I killed my father, if they put it to me," he added.

Hear the tale of An Sei-whan. As An was called up in the Appeal Court, a wave of pity passed over the white men there, for An was a miserable object, pale and emaciated. He was a consumptive and afflicted with other ills. He had been in the Christian Hospital at Pyeng-yang most of the winter, and had nearly died there. He had been walking a little for a few days, when he was arrested at the hospital in April. He had been vomiting blood.

"In this condition I was taken to the police headquarters and tortured. My thumbs were hung together and I was hung up, with my toes barely touching the ground. I was taken down nearly dead, and made to stand for hours under a chest nearly as high as my chest. Next day, when I was put under the shelf again my hair was fastened to the board, and my left leg doubled at the knee and tied. Blood came up from my lung, but fearful of the police I swallowed it. Now, I think it would have been better if I had vomited it. Then they might have had pity on me; but I did not think so then.

"Again I was hung up by the thumbs, clear of the floor this time. At the end of five minutes I was nearly dead. I asked if it would do to assent to their questions, and they took me down and took me before some superiors. When I said anything unsatisfactory I was beaten, and in this way learned what was wanted. I had no wish to deny or admit anything, only to escape further pain."

He asked that some of the missionaries who knew him might be called, to show that he was too ill to take part in any conspiracy.

One old man, Yi Chang-sik, a Presbyterian for sixteen years, had refused even under the torture to confess, and had tried to escape by suicide. "I thought that I had better commit suicide than be killed by their cruel tortures," he said. "They asked me if I had joined the conspiracy at the suggestion of Mr. McCune. I would not consent to this, so they tortured me harder. I was nearly naked, and so cold water was poured upon me. I was also beaten. Sometimes I would be tortured till the early hours of the morning.

"I longed for death to deliver me. Thanks to heaven, I found a knife one night in my room. The warder was not very careful with me. I took it secretly, intending to cut my throat—but my hand had become too weak. So I stuck it erect in the floor, and tried to cut my throat that way. Alas! At this moment the warder surprised me. When I had endured torture for over forty days, I asked them to make me guilty or innocent as quickly as possible. When I was taken to the Public Procurator's, I had pains in my ears, body and limbs. I could not stand the torture and wanted to die."

"Having got so far," wrote a spectator, "the old man broke down and began to weep, crying louder and louder. He said something as he wept, but the interpreter could not make out what it was. The Court evidently pitied him and told him to stand down. He withdrew, sobbing."

A Presbyterian student from Sun-chon, Cha Heui-syon, was arrested and kept for four months in the gendarmes office, becoming very weak. Then he was taken to the police headquarters.

"First I was hung up by my thumbs, then my hands and legs were tied, and I was made to crouch under a shelf about as high as my chest, which was intensely painful, as I could neither sit nor stand. Something was put in my mouth. I vomited blood, yet I was beaten. I was stood up on a bench and tied up so that when it was removed, I was left hanging. The interpreter who has often been in this court (Watanabe) tortured me. My arms stiffened so that I could not stretch them. As I hung I was beaten with bamboos three or four feet long and with an iron rod, which on one occasion made the hand of the official who was wielding it bleed."

At last he gave in. He was too weak to speak. They took him down and massaged his arms, which were useless. He could only nod now to the statements that they put to him. Later on they took him to the Public Procurator. Here he attempted to deny his confession. "The Public Procurator was very angry," he said. "He struck the table, getting up and sitting down again. He jerked the cord by which my hands were tied, hurting me very severely."

The case of Baron Yun Chi-ho excited special interest. The Baron being a noble of high family, the police used more care in extracting his confession. He was examined day after day for ten days, the same questions being asked and denied day after day. One day when his nerves were in shreds, they tortured another prisoner in front of his eyes, and the examiner told him that if he would not confess, he was likely to share the same fate. They told him that the others had confessed and been punished; a hundred men had admitted the facts. He did not know then that the charge against him was conspiracy to murder. He determined to make a false confession, to escape torture. He was worn out with the ceaseless questioning, and he was afraid.

The rehearing in the Court of Appeal lasted fifty-one days. In the last days many of the prisoners were allowed to speak for themselves. They made a very favourable impression. Judgment was delivered on March 20th. The original judgment was quashed in every case, and the cases reconsidered. Ninety-nine of the prisoners were found not guilty. Baron Yun Chi-ho, Yang Ki-tak and four others were convicted. Five of them were sentenced to six years' penal servitude, and one to five years. Two other appeals were made, but the only result was to increase the sentence of the sixth man to six years. Three of the men finally convicted had been members of the staff of the Dai Han Mai Il Shinpo. The Japanese do not forget or forgive readily. They had an old score to pay against the staff of that paper.

I have never yet met a man, English, American or Japanese, acquainted with the case, or who followed the circumstances, who believed that there had been any plot at all. The whole thing, from first to last, was entirely a police-created charge. The Japanese authorities showed later that they themselves did not believe it. On the coronation of the Japanese Emperor, in February, 1915, the six prisoners were released as a sign of "Imperial clemency." Baron Yun Chi-ho was appointed Secretary of the Y.M.C.A, at Seoul on his release, and Count Terauchi (whom he was supposed to have plotted to murder) thereupon gave a liberal subscription to the Y. funds.

There was one sequel to the case. The Secretary of the Korean Y.M.C.A., Mr. Gillett, having satisfied himself of the innocence of Baron Yun and his associates, while the trial was pending, sent a letter to prominent people abroad, telling the facts. The letter, by the indiscretion of one man who received it, was published in newspapers. The Japanese authorities, in consequence, succeeded in driving Mr. Gillett out of Korea. Before driving him out, they tried to get him to come over on their side. Mr. Komatsu, Director of the Bureau for Foreign Affairs, asked him and Mr. Gerdine, the President, to call on him. "The Government has met the demands of the missionary body and released ninety-nine out of the hundred and five prisoners who stood trial at the Appeal Court," said Mr. Komatsu. "It is to be expected that the missionary body will in return do something to put the Government in a strong and favourable light before the people of Japan." Mr. Komatsu added that Judge Suzuki's action was in reality the action of the Government-General, a quaint illustration of the independence of the judiciary in Korea.

The Administration made a feeble attempt to deny the tortures. Its argument was that since torture was forbidden by law, it could not take place. Let we quote the official statement:

"A word should be added in reference to the absurd rumours spread abroad concerning it (the conspiracy case) such as that the measures taken by the authorities aimed at 'wiping out the Christian movement in Korea,' since the majority of the accused were Christian converts, and that most of the accused made 'false confessions against their will,' as they were subject to 'unendurable ill-treatment or torture.' As if such imputations could be sustained for one minute, when the modern regime ruling Japan is considered!… As to torture, several provisions of the Korean criminal code indirectly recognized it, but the law was revised and those provisions were rescinded when the former Korean law courts were reformed, by appointing to them Japanese judicial staffs, in August, 1908…. According to the new criminal law (judges, procurators or police) officials are liable, if they treat accused prisoners with violence or torture, to penal servitude or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding three years. In reply to the memorial presented to the Governor-General by certain missionaries in Korea, in January, 1912, he said, 'I assure you that the entire examination of the suspected persons or witnesses is being conducted in strict compliance with the provisions of the law, and the slightest divergence from the lawful process will under no circumstances be permitted.' How then could any one imagine that it was possible for officials under him to act under any other way than in accordance with the provisions of the law."

Unfortunately for the noble indignation of the writer, the torture left its marks, and many men are living as I write still bearing them. Others only escaped from the hell of the Japanese prison in Seoul to die. They were so broken that they never recovered.