Villager Yoon Chung who has been jailed since Sept. 11 under the charge of damage on private facilities was released on Oct. 24, with the fine of 2.5 million won. It was his 44th day in prison.
He was jailed on Sept. 11 when he being drunken broke the glass doors of a pro-base shop people in the village. It is known that he is one of the villagers to have his land victimized because of the naval base project (The navy forcefully expropriated 49% of the villagers’ land with much cheaper price. Please come by later for the details on it.).
Prof. Shin Yong-In, a professor at the Law School of Jeju University and an advisory lawyer to Gangjeong village, has cited an article of the Seogwipo Daily News, Sept. 17, 2009:
‘According to the result of the ‘mental health condition,’ that the Seogwipo Daily newspaper researched on the Gangjeong villagers from Sept. 2 to 11, 2009, people that were described of mental abnormality such as antagonism feeling, depression, anxiety, compulsion occupied about 75.5 % of the whole villagers. Among the views on the mental abnormality, antagonism feeling was the most. About 57% of the whole villagers were suffering seized with antagonism. The people who feel suicide impulse reached to 43.9% of the whole villagers, which is 5.4 times higher, compared to 8.1%, the average value of suicide impulse of the Jeju Island people. In fact, the villagers who responded that they have attempted to commit suicide or have planned were 34.7%. Because of the Jeju naval base issue, the villagers’ mental status has become devastated.‘
(Please see here for more details.)
The village that has been proud of more than 450 years community by which they kept their traditional forms of respecting elders and caring children has been broken apart with the naval base project that has sneaked into their village in April 2007. Majority of the villagers are still infuriated that small sum of the villagers were bribed by the navy and sold their village to it at the time.
It is remarkable that the villagers have been making very hard efforts to recover their community since this year, such as through May 18 Parents Day which was interrupted by the navy again.
On June 20, 2012 when there was a forum on the measure on the victims of the April 3rd massacre and uprising(1947 to 1954), some panelists have raised a issue on the Gangjeong villagers that the villagers whether pro or anti have the right to use the trauma care institute since they were all the victims of the state violence.
