[News Wave] Jung Myeong Seok, JMS President; ‘False reports’ about his Luxurious Prison Life

Congressman Park Beom-gye’s report was produced from fabricated information.

After reviewing a national inspection carried out by Daejeon Public Prosecutors Office on October 24, 2013, Congressman Park Beom-gye (a democrat of Daejeon Seo-gu-eul), member of The National Assembly of Legislation claimed that Jung Myeong-seok, the president of Christian Gospel Mission (known as JMS and CGM), has being leading a luxurious life in prison. This report was not based on fact but on false information from an exaggerated and distorted report. 

The national inspection file distributed by Congressman Park said that President Jung received medical treatment 17 times from outside the prison in his 4 years of confinement, despite the fact that condition was healthy prior to imprisonment. He did not receive any proper treatment during the 6 years of his life in prison. Contrarily, President Jung has never received the benefit of medical treatments from outside the prison during his term of imprisonment. He only received a treatment from outside the prison once, because his gum disease became severe due to his age (69). The disease affected his life in prison by limiting his eating.  It was reported that the single instance of him undergoing treatment outside the prison was within normal process warranted by the regulations of his place of imprisonment. The dental care facility there was not properly equipped.

Congressman Park also said that President Jung delivered Sunday messages 302 times through frequent unscheduled meetings and often made phone calls with a cell phone at a blind spot in the prison. However, President Jung has never delivered Sunday messages through frequent unscheduled meetings and has never made phone calls with a cell phone at a blind spot in the prison. They are all false accusations.

Concerning the matter of visitations, President Jung has only taken part in the regular visitations scheduled for all convicted felons. Special visitations, which proceeded under the authority of a prison warden, took place only very occasionally. Regarding the Sunday messages also, President Jung has been sending the original sermon documents that, written in his own hand, through the normal mailing system, and the person in charge of the Sunday messages received them from the post office, typed them out using a word processor, and used them for delivering sermons.

In addition, there was no evidence backing Congressman Park’s claim that President Jung violated ‘the law pertaining to the execution of a sentence and the treatment of a convict’ by uploading onto CGM’s website. Furthermore, there was no evidence that President Jung frequently borrowed cell phones from three different prison guards and made calls at a blind spot within the prison.                                                

The report issued by Congressman Park claimed that a lawyer who is a member of JMS (known as deacon lawyer) recorded interviews with Jung frequently and delivered his recordings to the church. Conversely, there have been many cases of President Jung being falsely accused by slanderers who opposed CGM since 2010. (Ultimately, all cases were acquitted by the prosecution, who conducted investigations in the year of 2012.) Pesident Jung’s lawyer, who was also in charge of the prosecution, met President Jung within the requirements of the law for the purpose of defending him. 

President Jung was convicted because false information was given [to the court], Therefore, when the lawyer met with President Jung, they only discussed legal matters. The lawyer never delivered recorded messages to CGM’s headquarters. It is clear that false information has being circulated. 
 

Finally, Congressman Park claimed that President Jung frequently left the prison under the premise of receiving medical treatment from outside the prison and thereby contacted his church members. This claim is false: when he received his medical treatment from outside the prison he was strictly controlled according to prison regulation, and, since the fact that he received this medical treatment was secured information that he, himself, could not have leaked to anyone outside the prison, there is no evidence to suggest that he frequently contacted church members. The reporters of the second release asserted that, if President Jung had contacted his church members during his medical treatment outside the prison, Congressman Park  should reveal who contacted President Jung, when and which prison guards were involved in transferring him.

[The Original Text] http://www.newswave.kr/sub_read.html?uid=271894