...SEOUL IMMIGRATION DETENTION CENTER (SIDC)



The staff and their “customers”

When you enter in the 5th floor the detention section at first you come in the immigration, better to say the deportation processing room. Here during the daytime several (max. 5) officers are doing bureaucratic “work”, such as preparing transports of detainees to Incheon Airport or to Hwaseong Detention Center, or they are preparing for the next arrival of new captured migrant workers. Here the new captured will be photographed and registered – if they have passports, tickets for the fly back to their countries, or money to by tickets.
When you go right you’ll enter the control room with several control monitors, where the guards, mainly about max. 5, are watching what’s going on the cells for the detainees. The guards are very young and according to one long-term detainee they make a kind of alternative to the military service here, perhaps comparable to the riot cops (but actually, even I can believe the fact, I’m not sure – it must be checked...).
In the night-time usually at least one officer is on the spot and max. 5 guards.
The behaviour of the officers is, depend of the co-operation of the detainees, between unfriendly/impolite and just repugnant. The guards are mainly very ignorant – even you just want to have paper and a pen, they don’t react. Mainly they seem very rattled – actually they in fact don’t really know what’s going on there. But, such as a situation on before last week’s Thursday, they are able to use violence. On that day’s evening one of the detainees resisted peacefully to go back to his cell and one of the guards was throwing a heavy iron/wood table to him and after that about five guards and one officer forced - with pushing, pulling and kicking – in the cell.
Only few of the guards are a kind of friendly to the detainees.

The “customers”, a.k.a. the detainees

There are two groups of detainees in SIDC: the short-term and long-term detainees.
The short-term detainees are mainly migrant workers who were captured in the daytime on their work places or on the way to or from there. They usually spent maximal, with some exceptions, two days in SIDC until they will be transferred to Incheon or to Hwaseong. The exceptions are people who have no tickets or have to wait for their wages, the employers have to bring to Mok-dong. During July and the first week in August mainly between 80 and 120 detainees daily were coming and going. They came mainly from Asian countries – Mongolia, China, Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan... But also from former Soviet Republics, such as Russia, Kazakhstan, the Ukraine and even from Moldova. Also migrant workers from Africa (Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia...) are arriving weekly there. In the last time also some English teachers from the U.S. and Canada were “guests” there.
And, according to one writing on the wall there, some times ago a Iraqi was captured and deported.
S. Korean gov’t don’t know no pardon!!!

Until before last week’s Friday there were five long-term detainees. One had several labour issue lawsuits running since 4 month (WHY HE HAS BE DETAINED IN THIS RAT-HOLE?) and one was waiting of the final decision of a civil lawsuit (THE SAME QUESTION: WHY HE HAS...).
Very strange is also the case of the two other long-term detainees: both from African countries, where bloody civil wars killing daily countless of innocent people, just wanted to request for political asylum in S. Korea... and now since many weeks they are detained in this RAT-HOLE.
WE SHOULD CALL AND DENOUNCE THIS THE TOTAL VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS!!!

It will be continued...