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World Traveler
Joined: 29 May 2009
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 Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 6:48 am Post subject: A Leading Critic of South Korea�s President Is Jailed |
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The Web celebrity, Chung Bong-ju, 51, was one of the four co-hosts of �Naneun Ggomsuda,� or �I Am a Petty-Minded Creep.� Since it began in April, the weekly online talk show has drawn a nationwide audience and become one of the world's most downloaded political podcasts from the Apple iTunes store.
The show, the first of its kind in South Korea, was titled after a nickname for the president that is popular among his most vocal critics. Mr. Chung and his co-hosts have reveled in satirizing Mr. Lee and bringing up allegations against him and other political and economic leaders of a kind that South Koreans usually do not encounter in their country�s mainstream news media. |
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/world/asia/a-leading-critic-of-south-koreas-president-is-jailed.html
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�This is the beginning of cracking down on �Naneun Ggomsuda,�� Mr. Chung said in a telephone interview shortly before turning himself in to the prosecutors Monday. �This is a political revenge. This shows how premodern our laws are.�
His indictment and conviction came amid rising concerns about freedom of speech in South Korea, where defamation is a criminal offense and the onus of proof often lies not with those claiming to have been defamed but on the defendants. Under Mr. Lee, the South Korean authorities have been accused of abusing the laws and judicial practices to file defamation lawsuits designed to suppress political dissent.
In May, Frank La Rue, the United Nations� special rapporteur on the freedom of opinion and expression, said that during election campaigns in South Korea, �it is very difficult to distinguish expression that is permitted from that which is prohibited.�
�Many criminal defamation suits are filed for statements that are true and are in the public interest, and used to penalize individuals who express criticisms of the government,� he said. �Individuals face the constant threat of being arrested, held in pretrial detention, subjected to expensive criminal trials, heavily fined, imprisoned, saddled with a criminal record and stigmatized in society.� |
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Stout
Joined: 28 May 2011
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| Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 6:58 am Post subject: |
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| 'Cos we all know South Korea is a truly democratic country... |
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Julius
Joined: 27 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 7:11 am Post subject: |
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| WorldTraveler wrote: |
| it is very difficult to distinguish expression that is permitted from that which is prohibited |
And that goes for the law generally in Korea, which can be selectively and creatively interpreted to suit whoever is enforcing it.
In other words they have created a state of suspended insecurity whereby the people cannot speak or act in confidence. Everyone is a little paranoid and afraid to act independently or on their own initiative. They'd rather seek group opinion or relay the job to their superior before doing anything, just to be safe.
It harks back to the days of the Yangban actually- when nobody could amass wealth or run any enterprise because it could be stolen or undermined on any pretense, at a moments notice, by the yangban. |
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Stout
Joined: 28 May 2011
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| Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 8:59 am Post subject: |
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| As noted, very typical business as usual, and is a perfect example of the type of government behavior which caused Korean citizens to rise up against the South Korean government in the years leading up to the Korean War. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 9:13 am Post subject: |
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| It is good to see Korea's confused defamation laws being challenged by Korean media. |
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Stout
Joined: 28 May 2011
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| Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 9:38 am Post subject: |
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| Agreed that its a good thing that its being challenged. However, as noted in the article, those who challenge still get put down in a number of ways, so that although the 'freedom to expression' is technically allowed, it comes with some nasty consequences which end up deterring most citizens, so that actually you have a situation which is democratic in name only...have to hand it to whoever designed the system- it's pretty clever, nuanced, and deceives most outsiders. |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 4:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Stout wrote: |
| 'Cos we all know South Korea is a truly democratic country... |
It's the R.O.K. not the D.O.K.
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| By definition, a republic is a political unit governed by a charter, while a democracy is a government whose prevailing force is always that of the majority. Perhaps one of the difficulties in defining these two words � democracy and republic � stems from the fact that many people consider them to be synonyms, which they aren�t. They are no more alike than an apple and a banana, and yet they are often used interchangeably. |
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-difference-between-a-republic-and-a-democracy.htm
(bolding mine).
Last edited by TheUrbanMyth on Mon Dec 26, 2011 4:27 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Captain Corea
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 4:27 pm Post subject: |
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Correct me if I'm wrong but..
-isn't the guy jailed also a politician?
and
-wasn't he convicted for stuff he was saying during the election?
Korea isn't usually tough on defamation issues, but they seem to take election laws quite seriously. This is not the first time we've seen people running foul of the election board. |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 4:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Captain Corea wrote: |
Correct me if I'm wrong but..
-isn't the guy jailed also a politician?
and
-wasn't he convicted for stuff he was saying during the election?
Korea isn't usually tough on defamation issues, but they seem to take election laws quite seriously. This is not the first time we've seen people running foul of the election board. |
Very good point CC.
That too. He was convicted of violating election laws and defamation.
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| Last Thursday, the Supreme Court upheld a lower-court verdict that had sentenced Mr. Chung to a year in prison. The ruling said he had violated the country�s election and defamation laws when he spread unconfirmed rumors that Mr. Lee had been implicated in a stock scandal ahead of the December 2007 presidential election. Mr. Chung was a national lawmaker when he made the statements. |
But the agenda that certain people are pushing on this board would have that it is all about free speech... |
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Captain Corea
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 4:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Yeah, I'm not saying that SK is a bastion of free speech or anything, but there's other things at play sometimes. |
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TheUrbanMyth
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired
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| Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 4:45 pm Post subject: |
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| Captain Corea wrote: |
| Yeah, I'm not saying that SK is a bastion of free speech or anything, but there's other things at play sometimes. |
Agreed.
You'd think that there would be more people (supposedly all college-educated) here that would understand this. |
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The Great Wall of Whiner
Joined: 24 Jan 2003
Location: Middle Land
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| Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 6:38 pm Post subject: |
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| Stout wrote: |
| As noted, very typical business as usual, and is a perfect example of the type of government behavior which caused Korean citizens to rise up against the South Korean government in the years leading up to the Korean War. |
Let me get this straight:
Are you claiming that in the lead-up to the Korean War (in 1950) it was typical of the South Korean government to arrest, charge and convict on-line commentators on political talk shows? And that this 'perfect example' is why the Korean people rose up in the 1940's just before the Korean War?
I fail to understand where you learned such utter horse shait. |
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Stout
Joined: 28 May 2011
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| Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 7:40 pm Post subject: |
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| The Great Wall of Whiner wrote: |
| Stout wrote: |
| As noted, very typical business as usual, and is a perfect example of the type of government behavior which caused Korean citizens to rise up against the South Korean government in the years leading up to the Korean War. |
Let me get this straight:
Are you claiming that in the lead-up to the Korean War (in 1950) it was typical of the South Korean government to arrest, charge and convict on-line commentators on political talk shows? And that this 'perfect example' is why the Korean people rose up in the 1940's just before the Korean War?
I fail to understand where you learned such utter horse shait. |
Yes, you are on point, really in the game, buddy 
http://www.lurj.org/article.php/vol2n1/coldwar.xml
In the South, popular uprisings in 1946 were ruthlessly crushed by reactionary forces under the auspices of the American military government. Adopting the Japanese model of ruling, the United States found it convenient to �reestablish [the] colonial system by restoring to key positions Koreans who had collaborated with the Japanese� (Shin 65). In fact, there was nothing �democratic� about South Korea's authoritarian regimes that frequently relied on the U.S. military and clandestine KCIA operations to suppress dissidents. President Rhee Syngman, for example, used National Security Laws to arrest members of the National Assembly and frequently utilized the army to suppress leftist movements. Rhee ruthlessly crushed leftist movements in areas like Cheju Island, where, �one in every five or six citizens in the island perished� (Cumings 221). It is important to note that due to the military command structure in Korea, where the Korean military was directly responsible to the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff � not the Korean president � the political suppressions were unambiguously a byproduct sanctioned by the United States (Back 42). To the United States, supporting the Rhee government was widely understood as the only way of securing a sphere of pro-Western influence and containing the extension of the Soviet core in Asia. |
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UknowsI
Joined: 16 Apr 2009
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| Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 8:58 pm Post subject: |
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| Last Thursday, the Supreme Court upheld a lower-court verdict that had sentenced Mr. Chung to a year in prison. The ruling said he had violated the country�s election and defamation laws when he spread unconfirmed rumors that Mr. Lee had been implicated in a stock scandal ahead of the December 2007 presidential election. Mr. Chung was a national lawmaker when he made the statements. |
This is in my opinion the most important quote from the article. Mr. Chung will of course try to make it into question of free speech, and I don't know if his podcast had any influence of the case or not. But is it right for a lawmaker to spread unconfirmed rumours about a presidential candidate? I'm not saying it's right to send him to jail, but it sounds like he is using �Naneun Ggomsuda� as a distraction. |
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Unposter
Joined: 04 Jun 2006
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| Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2011 2:53 am Post subject: |
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| If he were an American politician, it would be almost a requirement to spread unconfirmed rumors about other politicians. Bush dodged the draft and Obama was born of foreign soil would be two examples. But, he isn't American. And, as far as I understand there isn't anything comparable to the free speach enjoyed in the U.S. in Korea. From this American's perspective, it is sad but true - I wish there were more free speach in Korea. Really!!! |
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