The Westgate prison or the Seodaemun prison was a site that I didn't know anything about. But the more I learned about the history and the contexts of the prison, I was able to find interest and understand the significance of the prison. The Seodaemun prison was opened in October 1908 and went under different management and names for various purposes. The names prison, jail, and correctional facility were used to describe how the management wanted the public to perceive the jail. The jail, prison, or correctional facility served the important purpose of suppressing prisoners who were fighting for the rights and liberty of the Korean people. Suppressing these prisoners took the form of death by torture and malnutrition, two of the worst ways to die. The names Prison and Jail were used by the Japanese to imprison independence activists and democratic revolutionary patriots. In the case of “correctional facility,” the Korean government wanted to imprison democratic activists and those who opposed the regime. Under such polarizing bodies of management (Japanese colonists and Korean dictatorships), why couldn’t the initial purpose of the prison be enough of a lesson not to violate the rights of the Korean people?
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