history

In the last century the Japanese imperialists occupied Korea militarily (1905-1945) and enforced fascist repressive politics against the Korean people.

Among the draconian colonial laws cooked up by the Japanese imperialists to that end was the “summary execution act”.

In December 1910, Terauchi, Japan’s first governor-general of Korea, promulgated the “summary execution act” as “decree” No. 10, and ordered it be enforced from January 1 1911.

The Japanese imperialists gave squad leaders of military police and police chiefs the right to punish Koreans at will without any legal procedure or trial by stipulating in the “summary execution act” that “a chief of police or squad leader of military police can decide on the spot on the crimes punishable by detention, flogging and police fine and the crimes of gambling, inflicting injury and violating administrative laws and regulations punishable by a less than three months’ prison term, a fine of less than 100 won or a police fine.”

The ferocity and viciousness of the “summary execution act” can be proved by the contents of the “rules for punishing police controlled offences”, the detailed enforcement rules of the act. The “rules” with 87 articles enabled the police to arrest and directly punish without trial those who wandered around to seek a way to make a living after losing homes and jobs, who had to beg for food unable to bear hunger under colonial rule, who presented group petitions and representations, who made a speech against Japanese colonial rule, who danced or sang at night and who flew a kite near a place under an electric wire.

Due to the evil law, many people had “summary convictions”.

According to the underreported data of the Japanese imperialists, the number of “summary conviction” cases was over 12 000 in 1911 and over 21 500 in 1912. Afterwards it continued to increase before jumping to over 71 000 in 1918, nearly six times more than that of 1911.

The crimes of the Japanese imperialists disclosed by the historical facts can never be erased even with the passage of time.

The Korean people will never pardon the Japanese authorities for shamelessly distorting and embellishing their past crimes but take revenge on the Japanese for having killed their ancestors on false charges.