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Guest Post: Journalist preemptively jailed for libel in South Korea, a prosperous OECD country

The following guest post is submitted by Dr. Tara O.

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The Committee to Protect Journalists’ map shows that 262 journalists were imprisoned in numerous countries around the world in 2017. The Republic of Korea was not on the map as one of those countries . . . until now. With the jailing of Byun Hee-jae of a small independent media outlet Media Watch (www.mediawatch.kr) on May 30, 2018,South Korea, a prosperous OECD country, took a step back by jailing a journalist. The Moon administration has already targeted major media broadcasters. Early in his presidency, Moon Jae-in used labor unions and the government apparatus to forcibly replace the heads of MBC and KBS, 2 of the major TV and radio broadcasters, in South Korea. See here for further details. Now the Moon administration is targeting small, independent media to further silence those it does not like.

The charge against Byun? Libel. The reason for jailing? “Justified based on the criminal charge” and “the concern for evidence tampering,” said Lee Un-hak (이언학), the head judge of the Arrest Warrant Department of the Seoul Central Prosecutor’s Office. Byun is imprisoned even before being given a trial.

It is rare to be confined for alleged defamation. According to the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office’s Crime Analysis Statistics, of the 17,401 people charged with libel in 2016, only 15, or .086 percent, were imprisoned, and even less (3 or .017 percent) had advanced arrest warrants. The reason for such a low imprisonment rate is due to the controversy over restricting the freedom of expression as well as the mildness of the crime compared to murder or robbery. To jail someone charged with libel is certainly uncommon.

In this case, the libel charges stem from Byun’s assertion that cable channel “JTBC colluded with former presidential administrator Kim Han-su to obtain a tablet PC, manipulated the files to make it appear that Choi Soon-sil (최순실) used it, and reported it” on TV as such.

JTBC aired the tablet PC story consecutively on October 24, 25, and 26, 2016. On the 26th, JTBC’s president and anchor Sohn Suk-hee appeared himself on TV to claim that the tablet PC belonged to Choi, that the tablet contained Park’s Dresden Speech, and that Choi edited it. It led people to believe that Park was not running the country, but Choi was, and that Choi had “Gukjeong Nongdan” (국정농단; monopoly of state affairs), which made Park Geun-hye an abdicator of power.

JTBC’s unsubstantiated claim about the tablet PC angered the public, leading to multiple, massive candlelight protests. The prosecutors and the constitutional court also referred to the news stories about the tablet PC as “evidence” of “monopoly of state affairs.”

Park was impeached, and Moon was elected. Unlike what has been written in English, Park was not impeached for corruption or bribery, but for charges that she gave away the “monopoly of state affairs,” and the tablet PC was seen as the “silver bullet.”

The tablet PC turned out to contain no evidence per the special prosecutors’ own forensic report and was not even Choi’s. The tablet PC also did not contain Korean document editing-capable software. The report, however, was not released to the public until a year later, long after the impeachment had concluded and the public fervor had died down.

Sohn stated afterwards that “even if there was no such thing as the [insignificant] tablet PC . . . , [it wouldn’t have mattered]” implying that Park would have been impeached anyway, although it was his TV program that incited people. JTBC, popular among the youth, has made other erroneous claims and sensationalized reporting on the Sewol Ferry sinking, Theater High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD), and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS).

Byun had written articles on his Media Watch website, recorded videos on the Youtube and published a book, “The Curse of Sohn Suk-hee” (손석희의 저주) since December 2016, disputing Sohn’s claim about the tablet PC.

The police arrested Byun in the early hours on May 30, 2018 on charges that Byun slandered JTBC, Sohn Suk-hee, and the employees, and that Sohn’s family is severely suffering. On Youtube, Byun stated on May 28 that he would be detained soon and that his video may be his last (see from :38) for some time. He said he had been writing and airing this topic for a year and a half, but had no complaints (starting 3:17) from JTBC or Sohn before, and wondered why now.

Jailing a journalist for libel is highly unusual. What is happening to the freedom of press and the rule of law in South Korea? If there is a trial, Byun must have one in six months. Will the authorities lock him up for that long? Will there be a trial? Does the judge’s claim that Byun may tamper with evidence have credibility? His book, articles, and videos have already been published, so it would be hard to hide them, even if he had any intent.

The Moon administration has already taken over some of the major TV and radio broadcasters. Some journalists have found their voices in small and independent media. Now, the Moon administration wants to silence them too.

(Photo credit: Yonhap)

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A previous version of this post said that South Korea was the only OECD country to preemptively jail a journalist. Dr. O now believes that statement to be incorrect and writes in to request the correction.

14 Responses

  1. “Byun said he had been writing and airing this topic for a year and a half, but had no complaints (starting 3:17) from JTBC or Sohn before, and wondered why now.”

    The following might help explain “why now.”

  3. Thank you so much for this post. Could you share this with Gordon Chang as well so that he can comment at Fox about lawsuits against Mr. Byun and Mr. Ji, Man won?

  4. “국정농단” is not a monopoly of state affairs but tampering with or meddling in state affairs.

  5. Sohn’s fabrication of facts and brazen lies is jaw-dropping. Byun is not the only one who has exposed it. The Korean media is being bullied and manipulated by the communist-sympathisers in the administration and Moon himself.

  6. Sohn Suk-hee is a sociopath, psychopath, pathological liar and sleeping with far left liberal commies.
    He has no conscientious, no morals not so ever!
    The saddest part is that South Korean youngsters get easily brainwashed by this creature.
    President Park Geun-Hye was & is all the innocent. It was a mob justice incited by this kind of trash journalist like Sohn Suk-hee, operatives from N. Korea, political opposition party in S.Korea … etc. It’s shame to see how crowd mentality or their group IQ could go down that far to the basement level. S. Korea will regret someday for letting people like Sohn Suk-hee & Moon Jae-In to manipulate the people, and convinced by them that jailing journalists who have different view is OK, especially jailing people who investigated Tablet PC matters thoroughly. So unreal to watch this happening in a country so called democratic free society like South Korea, that they’re jailing journalist who investigated, and found Tablet PC to be a fake. This just happened in this century in S.Korea! Wow!

  9. An example of what JTBC does:

    “Earlier this week, a reporter from the cable TV station JTBC located Chung Yoo-ra, the daughter of President Park Geun-hye’s confidante Choi Soon-sil, in Denmark. After failing to get Chung to speak to him, the JTBC reporter called the local police to arrest her and reported on the development as an exclusive. …

    In a coda to the story of Chung Yoo-ra’s arrest, the Associated Press reported this week that a judge in Denmark was strongly considering legal steps against South Korean reporters for breaking local law. The country forbids filming inside a courtroom but South Korean reporters did precisely that, talking to Chung for minutes on tape and broadcasting the interview footage for consumption back in South Korea.”

    https://www.koreaexpose.com/ethics-south-korean-journalism-fails/

  10. “Byun said he had been writing and airing this topic for a year and a half, but had no complaints (starting 3:17) from JTBC or Sohn before, and wondered why now..

    => Byun also made a statement, during a recent rally and press conference in front of the Japanese embassy, that as President Moon won’t do anything about it, conservative citizens will join hands with Japan in regard to the abduction issue.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_JuI-R9eM4&t=157s

  11. Extract from Media Watch article:
    http://jushinjok.blogspot.com/2018/05/court-ruling-on-former-president-park.html

    On the 6th April 2018, Lawyer Lee Kyung-jae, told Judge Kim Se-yoon, who sentenced Park Geun-hye to a lengthy, 24-year imprisonment, that “I fear that the name of the judge will live in infamy for thousands of years because of this ruling and his live TV broadcast.”>

    Lawyer Lee strongly criticized the court for not mentioning the tablet PC that was submitted by JTBC as evidence, even though the court found Park Geun-hye guilty of disclosure of state secrets in the course of official duty.

    Lawyer Lee pointed out that, “The trial court delayed for nearly a year the verification and testimony of the JTBC’s tablet PC, which is the central evidence for the fabricated allegations for interference with the state affairs, and later the court failed to mention the tablet PC even though it admitted into evidence the forensic report from the National Forensic Service (NFS). These make the court’s decision grossly unjust.”

    With regard to this, Mr. Byeon Hee-jae, CEO of Media Watch, said the Evidence of Impeachment motion put by the National Assembly on December 8, 2016 only included 21 unverified news reports written by JTBC and other newspapers. He also stressed that it was the planting of false evidence in the tablet PC that led to the search and confiscation of The Blue K, and the detention of Jeong Ho-seong and Ahn Jong-beom, which were a fraud and this was a politically orchestrated impeachment.

    Mr. Byeon said if the forensic report on the tablet PC by the NFS, admitted as evidence by Kim Se-yoon, says that JTBC has not planted or doctored anything in the tablet PC and the tablet PC scientifically belongs to Choi Soon-sil as alleged by Son Seok-hee and JTBC, there would be no reason not to admit it as evidence for this trial. He also asked why the part that “She edited the speech on the tablet PC” was missing if the JTBC reports were true.

  12. With regards to NFS report:

    After many requests from lawyer Lee Kyeong-jae, the court allowed the National Forensic Service (국립과학수사연구원) to view the tablet and they analysed and released a report on the 27th November 2017.

    Freedom News summarised the report.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJNLilDmcNU (Freedom News)

    1. The report consists of 20,000 pages.

    2. The NFS couldn’t come up with any evidence that the Tablet PC has been used by Choi Sool-sil.

    3. There are many indications that the tablet PC had been used by many people including Kim Hui-jong (administrative officer at BH), and that the real owner is Kim Han-su (secretary to the president for administration).

    4. Yoon Seok-yeol, one of the key prosecutors, said they concluded that it belonged to Choi, based on the fact that GPS locations stored in the device matched Choi’s whereabouts. Yoon claimed that the Tablet PC was with her at the time she was at JeJu Airport in 2012. The Tablet PC was 50km away from JeJu Airport, the NFS report states.

    5. The Tablet PC doesn’t have a programme which would allow editing of the Dresden Speech. Choi could not have done this. This is the most important finding as this reflects on whether or not Choi edited President Park’s speech – the very thing that most angered the public.

    6. JTBC obtained the Tablet PC on the 18th October 2016 and kept it till 24thOctober. During this period, 3000 files were deleted or added. The National Forensic Service report shows the changes made by day and hour.

    However, the prosecutors announced and the JTBC broadcast that the Tablet PC was never fabricated, on the very same day the NFS report to the contrary came out.

    Additional information:

    Recently, it was revealed that Kim Han-su is a close friend of Hong Jeong-do, the CEO of JTBC, and a son of Hong Seok-heon (the owner of JoongAng press and JTBC).

    Reporter Woo talks about the relationship between Hong Seok-hyeon, Hong Jeong-Do, Kim Han-su and Kim Hui-jong.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMbGypVTz4c

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