Human rights groups plan to hold a series of press conferences and other events nationwide this week to call for measures to prevent human rights abuses at public detention centers holding foreigners in South Korea. 

The events are being arranged to mark the 15th anniversary of a fatal fire at a detention facility within the immigration office in Yeosu, South Jeolla Province, on February 11, 2007, which killed 10 of the 55 foreign nationals in the facility and injured 17 others. 

One of the scheduled press conferences will be held in Seoul on Thursday. Others will be held at foreigners’ centers in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, Busan and Daegu on Wednesday or Friday. 

Participants plan to question government efforts made since the Yeosu tragedy to improve related policies and practices and call for measures to root out human rights breaches at such facilities. 

They will also call for punishment of those responsible for a reported inhumane treatment of a Moroccan man held at the detention center in Hwaseong in June last year.