조선총독부의 민족종교 탄압과 제주도 무극대도 사건

Abstract

The Mugeuk Daedokyo Incident on Jeju Island was a significant incident that occurred on Jeju Island in 1937 when Japan was moving toward militarism. According to the verdict, 20 people were convicted in this case. The most common crimes they were charged with were “impiety to the Japanese Emperor” and “National security law.” ‘Impiety to the Japanese Emperor” consisted in the fact that they foresaw that the Japanese Emperor would soon be dethroned, and “National security law” was invoked as they said that Japan’s imperialism would soon collapse and Joseon would become independent. Additionally, Military penal law and Navy penal law were involved as Japan said that it would lose in the Sino-Japanese War. This incident was part of an independence movement that desired the defeat of Japan and Korea's independence. To block the support of the general public for the religious leader Kang Seung-tae, the Japanese government played on social issues such as “fraud,” “rape,” and “violation of doctors’ rules.” charged with immorality.
 The Imperial Japanese divided the religions of colonial Korea into two types. Japan’s state religions, “Shinto” and “Buddhism,” and “Christianity,” were classified as religions and administered by the Religious Division of the Academic Affairs Bureau of the Japanese Government-General of Korea. Ethnic religions that desired human liberation, national liberation, and national independence were classified as “similar religions,” and were controlled by the Government-General’s Police Bureau, which suppressed independence activists. Religions classified as pseudo-religions were all ethnic religions that dreamed of national liberation.
 Even after the liberation of Korea, this religious classification made by the Japanese was accepted as it was, and those involved in the Mugeukdaedo incident were excluded from the national conferment of a decoration. Kang Seung-tae, the leader of the Mugeuk Daedokyo, was treated as a person of interest to the point that even after serving his six-year sentence, the Japanese Empire would not release him, because the view of the Japanese Government- General, who treated him as a pseudo religious leader, was maintained even after liberation.
 Now is the time to frame the Mugeukdaedo incident on Jeju Island as one of the fiercest national liberation movements of the 1930s.