SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea reiterated on Tuesday its demand that China investigate accusations by a South Korean activist that he was tortured by Chinese security officers, ratcheting up pressure in a case that has already caused tensions.
Following the assertions of the activist, Kim Young-hwan, the Foreign Ministry also said it would interview an estimated 620 South Koreans known to have been held in China on allegations of various crimes to see if any of them were tortured. In addition, a spokesman for the ministry said the government would “actively support” Mr. Kim’s plan to take his case to the United Nations high commissioner for human rights.
The spokesman, Cho Tai-young, said the Chinese government, which denied torturing Mr. Kim, has not responded to South Korea’s repeated demands for a new investigation.
Mr. Kim, 49, who has said he was trying to help North Korean refugees in China, was arrested with three other activists from the South on March 29. They were held for 114 days on charges of endangering national security until they were expelled on July 20.
The case has snowballed since Mr. Kim’s release. Last week, he called a news conference at which he announced that he was tortured and that the Chinese authorities had tried to make him sign a statement denying any mistreatment and admitting to violating Chinese laws as a condition of his release, something he refused to do. He has since provided South Korean news media with details of his alleged torture.
“They put a cattle prod, wrapped in electric coils, inside my clothes and placed it on my chest and back,” Mr. Kim told Chosun Ilbo, a mass-circulation daily newspaper in South Korea. “It felt like being continuously electrocuted.
“I could smell my flesh burning,” he said. “They also threatened several times to send me to North Korea.”
China and South Korea, which fought against each other during the Korean War in the early 1950s, have built booming economic ties in recent years but maintain an uneasy diplomatic relationship, mainly over differences in how to deal with North Korea and refugees from the impoverished country.
Since a famine hit North Korea in the late 1990s, South Korean activists, many of them Christian missionaries, have traveled to China to help the North Koreans fleeing hunger and brutality, often helping smuggle them to South Korea. China, an ally of North Korea, considers the North Koreans illegal immigrants, regularly rounding them up and shipping them home, where they could face harsh punishment in prison camps.
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