Author: Bong-ju Chung
Publisher: Wang-eui Seojae
312 pages | 212*146mm
| Important! Please read before you order! |
| >>>This book is written in Korean. |
About This Book
A Leading Critic of South Korea’s President Is Jailed
By CHOE SANG-HUN
--Wall Street Journal
SEOUL — A popular online critic of President Lee Myung-bak who rose to
national fame with a podcast lampooning the South Korean leader was
thrown into prison Monday after he was convicted of spreading false
rumors connecting Mr. Lee to allegations of stock fraud.
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.
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.
Although the charges predated the podcast, Mr. Chung’s supporters
claimed that the timing of the verdict led them to suspect it was
designed to stifle the online show. The Supreme Court denied that its
ruling was politically motivated.
“The Pandora’s box is opening again; the fight for truth has just
begun,” Mr. Chung said Monday, indicating that the stock fraud case,
which was closed by prosecutors after Mr. Lee was cleared of any
charges, might be reopened in the coming months as the president enters
his lame-duck year in office.
Mr. Chung made that comment when he appeared at the prosecutors’ office
in Seoul. Opposition legislators and other supporters surrounded him,
condemning “political prosecutors” and shouting the podcast’s motto:
“Let’s not be intimidated!” An hour later, prosecutors locked up Mr.
Chung.
South Korea is scheduled to elect a new president next December; by law,
Mr. Lee cannot run for re-election. And with the election year about to
begin, “Naneun Ggomsuda” has emerged as an influential channel of
anti-government views. While many South Koreans laugh it off as a comedy
or accuse it of blurring the line between journalism and
rumor-mongering, others follow it religiously. They regard it as an
alternative to the country’s mainstream media, which they consider too
pro-government and conservative.
The show was among the first to raise suspicions about a hacking attack
on the Web site of the national election commission Oct. 26, when people
in Seoul went to the polls to elect their mayor. A subsequent
investigation revealed that at least one governing party official had
coordinated the attack to undermine the chances of the independent
candidate Park Won-soon. Mr. Park eventually won the election.
Mr. Chung, a student activist during the era of military rule in South
Korea, was largely unknown outside his district in Seoul before the
podcast began. But many people found it refreshing to hear a former
politician offer an insider’s detailed commentary on South Korean
politics. His relentless and comic self-aggrandizing only added to his
celebrity.
“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.”
Availability: Usually ships in 5~10 business days.
 | |||||||||
 |
| ||||||||
Can't
find what you're looking for?
