Surviving in Strange Times and Places : ‘Settlement’ and Life in South Korea after Long-term Incarceration Prisoners of Conscience are Released

Abstract

The article was intended to remind long-term inmates who had been “forced to change their thoughts” that they had been left out of the 2000 repatriation and were still waiting for the second one. eir identity has been structured by prison life, as evidenced by terms like “prisoner of conscience” or “long-term prisoner”, but this article argues that they have coexisted in our society for 30 years even aer being released from prison in order to highlight the dynamics and signicance of that period.BRAer being released from jail in December 1988, long-term “forced conversion” inmates had to live as lower class workers in Korean society while being closely monitored by the police. Transferring to a worker was typically a dicult process as well.BRey were tormented and forced to turn, but they lived with a bad conscience because they did. Due to the ‘fact’ of being converted, they were excluded from repatriation in 2000. erefore, they proclaimed that “conversion by coercion and torture is invalid” and stood in solidarity with South Korean civic groups to be repatriated. Additionally, they actively took part in South Korea’s progressive civic movement.