This report summarizes the findings of an AI delegation which visited South Korea in October 1994. It also includes information gathered by the organization throughout 1994. The report gives, first, an overview of the human rights situation in South Korea and then highlights some of the most pressing human rights problems. These are: the use of the National Security Law to detain prisoners of conscience; the failure to review the cases of long-term political prisoners; problems in arrest/interrogation procedures and ill-treatment of suspects; alleged illegal activities by the Agence for National Security Planning, such as the provision of false evidence about a suspect or the provision of information violating the presumption of innocence; the use of the death penalty; and the arrest of trade unionists during peaceful protests.
