Hong Jin-Ki was an entrepreneurial journalist and South Korean high-ranking official of the Syngman Rhee government who served as the 9th Ministry of Justice from 1958 to 1960.
Life
Hong Jin-Ki was born in Seoul. He attended the Keijō Imperial University 京城帝国大学 Keijō Teikoku Daigaku, where he received a Bachelor of Laws in 1940. And soon afterwards Hong Jin-ki passed the judicial examination under the colonial administration of imperial Japan. Immediately on completing his probationary judicial officer, he was appointed to a judge of the Jeonju District Court in 1943.
After liberation
After Korea was liberated from Japan on 15 August 1945, the Special Committee for Prosecution of Anti-National Offenders had been established to purge and prosecute the pro-Japanese who worked for the Japanese colonial government. However, all efforts were hampered and dissolved by Dr. Syngman Rhee, the first president of South Korea, who had to depend on the pro-Japanese to establish his regime. As a result of Dr. Rhee's political schemes, many pro-Japanese as well as Hong Jin-Ki could cut their ways of what they have done during the Japanese rule, resulting in the empowerment and reinstatement of the pro-Japanese officials, armies and police.
After joining Syngman Rhee Government, Hong Jin-ki served as the Justice Deputy Minister in 1954, and then the Minister of Justice in 1958, and became the Home Office Minister in 1960. A growing civil uprising against the rigged election in March 1960 ended up developing into the April Revolution, and Syngman Rhee went out of his office on 26 April 1960; Rhee was pressured by the United States Government into an immediate resignation. On 15 June 1960, the Second Republic, led by Yoon Bo-seon and Chang Myon, was established by the new constitution. Upon the inauguration of the new government, it was shown that there were many problems with economic climate. Eventually, the powerless and incompetent Second Republic was ended by a military government under the Supreme Council for National Reconstruction. At the instigation of the military junta, the Revolution Tribunals were established for punishing political offenders, political henchmen, illicit fortune amassers and high-ranking officials relating to armed crackdown during April Revolution.
Revolution trial
Along with the Presidential Security Chief Gwak Young-joo, the Commissioner of Seoul Metropolitan Agency Ryu Choong-ryul, and Chief of Seoul Security Division Baek Nam-kyu, Hong Jin-Ki was indicted on charges that he ordered security forces and police to shoot unarmed protesters during the uprising on 19 April 1960. Moreover, the military government indicted Hong Jin-Ki on another charge of commanding his subordinates to rig the 4th presidential election. He was sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted to life in prison. In the years after the Revolution Tribunal, he was released from prison on a special amnesty, because it had proved Hong Jin-Ki did not order to shoot.
Becoming the media tycoon
In 1968, he was appointed to chief executive officer of Joongang Broadcasting Station. He was named Joongang Ilbo's president in 1968 and became chairman in 1980. He played a crucial role in developing Joongang Ilbo as one of the country's three main newspapers from the 1980s until his death in 1984. His eldest son, Hong Suk-yeon, is the current head of the Joongang Ilbo. On 29 August 2005, the Institute for Research in Collaborationist Activities issued a list of 3,094 pro-Japanese collaborators including Park Jung-Hee, the former Korean President, Bang Eun-Mo, a former president of Chosun Ilbo, Kim Song Su, a former publisher of Dong-a Ilbo, and Hong Jin-Ki.
