The April 3 victim records are a collective history of victims, including the background of the incident, the history of the victims in the process of investigating the truth and restoring honor, the process of establishing the April 3 Special Act and resolving civil-private cooperation. The Jeju 4.3 Incident occurred on Jeju Island, a small South Korean island ruled by U.S. Government amid the global Cold War and the division of the Korean Peninsula after World War II was the second most serious casualty in modern Korean history. Of the island's total population of 280,000, between 25,000 and 30,000 were found to have been killed. Nevertheless, 50 years after the incident, no specific and comprehensive fact-finding has been made, and the truth and justice have been concealed. Since the late 1980s, the damage has gradually begun to be revealed as a fierce campaign to reveal the truth of Jeju civil society, including bereaved families, students, civic groups, media, cultural circles, and academic circles. On January 12, 2000, the Jeju April 3 Incident Truth and Victim Honor Recovery Committee was launched with the enactment of the "Special Act on the Truth and Restoration of Victims". The findings were announced at the time Roh Moo-hyun, the Korean President to visit Jeju Island at a “In the past power of the state of sympathy and heartfelt apology to family and the Jeju for a mistake to say.” and came to a formal apology. In addition, the government has taken steps to overcome past tragedies and move toward the future, including the creation of Jeju April·3 Peace Park in 2003, the establishment of Jeju April ·3 Peace Foundation in 2008, the designation of national anniversaries by the government in 2012, and the declaration of formalization between the bereaved families. The April 3 victim records are a collective history of victims, including the background of the incident, the history of the victims in the process of investigating the truth and restoring honor, the process of establishing the April 3 Special Act and resolving civil-private cooperation.
These people were wrongfully arrested, imprisoned and (in some cases tortured) by armed police, military and security forces as a part of the 4.3 Incident, without legitimate justification and without proper hearings or trial. It is essential theme that they spend their time in jail without doing any crime during the Jeju 4.3 Grand Tragedy. It is our second theme that they have suffered pains, trauma and lamentations from the Tragedy, then and now. These 11 cases represent desperate situation of violations of human rights of Jeju people during the Jeju 4.3 Grand Tragedy as it were : Gyeong-in Kim, Pyeong-guk Kim, Dong-su Park, Won-hyu Boo, Chun-ok Park, Keun-bang Yang, Il-hwa Yang, Hui-chun Oh, Chang-yong Hyun, U-ryong Hyun, and Byeongtae Jo