Precinct chiefs meeting was like a coup, says interior minister

Interior Minister Lee Sang-min speaks at a press conference at the Central Government Complex in Jongno District, central Seoul on Monday. [YONHAP]

Interior Minister Lee Sang-min on Monday blasted top police officers for gathering over the weekend to oppose his ministry's plan to create a police oversight bureau, comparing their actions to a coup.

Speaking to reporters on his way to work at the Central Government Complex in Jongno District, central Seoul, Lee criticized police precinct chiefs for violating an order from the police agency to disband a conference at the Police Human Resources Training Institute in Asan, South Chungcheong on Saturday.

“By meeting, [the precinct chiefs] flagrantly defied the order of the acting commissioner general of the National Police Agency (NPA),” Lee said of the conference participants. “This is basically akin to the gathering of Hanahoe members who plotted the military coup d’etat of Dec. 12, 1979,” he added.

The Hanahoe was an unofficial group of military officers headed by Chun Doo Hwan, who seized power through the coup and later became president.

One hundred and ninety police precinct chiefs attended the four-hour weekend conference, some in person and some virtually, and issued a statement afterwards calling on the Interior Ministry to shelve its plan to establish a bureau by Aug. 2 to oversee the police agency until more public and legislative consultations take place.

In the statement, the conference’s participants cited the risk that the ministry’s bureau could undermine the police agency’s political neutrality and independence.

The interior minister’s comparison between the meeting and the 1979 coup sparked outrage from Ryu Sam-yeong, a police official who was discharged from his post as chief of the Ulsan Jungbu Police Precinct as a result of his participation in the weekend gathering. He is currently awaiting reassignment to a lower position.

“The [real] coup is the Interior Ministry’s plan to establish a police bureau that would undermine the political neutrality of the police,” Ryu said in a phone interview Monday with the JoongAng Ilbo. “The gathering of police officials this weekend is aimed at stopping this kind of action.”

Ryu added that the punitive measure taken against him by police headquarters showed how the Interior Ministry plans to subjugate police officers once the so-called “police bureau” is established.

“In a way, I am grateful that [the authorities] have shown their true colors and demonstrated how they would abuse their control over police appointments to silence us,” Ryu said.

The Interior Ministry has argued that greater oversight of the NPA is necessary once the agency takes over most of the state prosecution service’s investigative powers in September.

Through a police bureau, the Interior Ministry will be able to take on a wide range of functions such as recommending candidates for high-ranking police positions and demanding disciplinary measures for senior police officials, including the commissioner general.

Police at Saturday’s conference called it a reversal of 1991 reforms that made the police agency independent of the Ministry of Home Affairs, the precursor of the Interior Ministry.

Those reforms were enacted to end human rights abuses and political repression carried out by public security forces under the military dictatorship, which ended in 1987.

Speaking to reporters on his way to work at the presidential office in Yongsan District, central Seoul on Monday, President Yoon Suk-yeol briefly addressed concerns that the police bureau plan could result in serious blowback from rank-and-file police officers.

“I believe that the Interior Ministry and the NPA will take all necessary measures to handle the matter,” Yoon said.

Presidential chief of staff Kim Dae-ki also downplayed the controversy at a Sunday press briefing, where he said the establishment of a police bureau “is not a matter for the president to engage in.”

“The problem of discipline and order [within the police force] is an issue for the NPA and the Interior Ministry,” Kim said, while also arguing that “checks on the police are needed now that that their powers will expand.”

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]