일제시대 사상통제제도에 관한 역사적 고찰

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to closely investigate Thought Control System in prewar Japan and Korea under Japanese colonial rule. It consisted of the legal and administrative devices used to suppress what Japanese government authorities viewed as radical. There are many people in the world who have become criminals in involved with their own radical thought. They are so called thought criminals. Thought crime is, as it were, to violate the laws of state by means of expressing, propagandizing or coming true radical thought such as communism, socialism, anarchism and so on. And it has originated under Thought Control System which included Preliminary Hearing influenced by the criminal procedure act of France, The Peace Preservation Law, Ideological Transformation, The Probation of Thought Crime Law and Preventive Detention. But Thought Control System in imperial Japan was enforced in colonial Korea and the interpretation and application of the system in Korea was very different from that in Japan. It was applied to the Korean independence movement to protect Japanese imperial regime. The Movement was interpreted as radical and dangerous activities and Korean people trying to be independent of Japanese colonial rule also was considered to be radical and dangerous. Therefore, they were arrested by reason of subverting the laws of state, imposed on probation, enforced to make ideological transformation and even sentenced to dead penalty. Ironically, although Japan was defeated in 1945 and The Republic of Korea was founded in 1948, Thought Control System applied to Korea under Japanese colonial rule has been continued in the laws and systems of the 21st century Korea. Now that Korea is divided south and north, it is so hard to say that thought control is not necessary to national security or social order. To be so, “How much do we enjoy Freedom of Thought ?” We have to try to solve this question clearly for the future.