Via a reader tip comes a video of journalist and author Gordon Chang recently giving a speech to the National Press Club about the Moon administration’s attacks on the freedom of speech in South Korea. He also discusses the current security situation on the Korean peninsula.
Dr. Tara O, one of my favorite Korea analysts, has an article published about the prosecution and eventual conviction of a cartoonist and journalist which is just another example of the war on conservative journalists by the Moon administration:
Cartoon that led to libel conviction.
On September 11, 2018, the prosecutor proposed a 1-year sentence each for Mr. Yoon Seo-in, a cartoonist, and Mr. Kim Se-ui, a journalist, for libel at the final hearing at the Seoul Central District Court presided by judge Choi Mi-bok (최미복).
This libel lawsuit follows another libel lawsuit against a journalist, Mr. Byun Hee-jae, for defaming JTBC, a cable TV broadcaster. JTBC aired the tablet PC story, which played a crucial role in the former president Park Geun-hye’s impeachment. Byun has called out JTBC’s tablet PC story as fabricated. Byun’s characterization was corroborated by the special prosecutors’ own forensic report. However, Byun was sued for libel, and the Seoul Central District Court jailed Byun prior to trial. It is an unusual move to jail a journalist in South Korea, especially prior to a trial, although numerous political opponents have been jailed prior to trial since early 2017. Byun’s trial is currently underway.
Another worrisome event is that Moon’s Deoburreo Minju Party has submitted a “broadcast law reform” bill to regulate individuals who post videos on Youtube and other video sites as “mass media.” If this bill becomes law, then the individuals who post videos become “subject to government review” and if it does not like them, the government can “simply get rid of them,” criticized National Assemblyman Kim Jin-tae, Liberty Korea Party. This is after the Moon administration, along with Media Workers’ Union, took control over major broadcasters MBC and KBS. [East Asia Research Center]
You can read the whole thing at the link, but just like Byun Hee-jae who was jailed for writing something true, Yoon and Kim put together a cartoon that was true and were convicted.
Seoul court fined a cartoonist Yoon Seo-in & journalist Kim Se-ui $6,150 each over a satire cartoon in a libel suit. The Moon administration dislikes them for speaking out about Moon's policy toward North Korea, economy, security, etc. #FreedomofSpeechhttps://t.co/hnRwcLCCUO
An interesting fact from the article was how the South Korean media that was taken over by the Korean left through labor union violence, has slanted their coverage of the story. Even more interesting is that MBC after being taken over then had the architect of the phony US beef riots of 2008 put in charge as President.
You would think with the jailing and fining of journalists the international media would be rushing to cover this, but for one minor New York Times article there has been little coverage of this.
It is very Japanese to apologize for causing a fuss even when you are taken hostage:
Journalist Jumpei Yasuda has faced hostility from fellow Japanese since arriving back home after spending three years in captivity in the Middle East
A Japanese journalist freed from Syria this week arrived home to overjoyed relatives and supporters, but also to vitriol from some who accuse him and other hostages of reckless behaviour.
Jumpei Yasuda was kidnapped in Syria in 2015, and spent more than three years in conditions he described as “hell.”
He arrived back in Japan on Thursday night, greeted by his delighted wife and parents, who had brought him homemade Japanese food to celebrate.
But even before Yasuda set foot on Japanese soil, he was the target of angry criticism — mostly online — ranging from accusations of recklessness to claims that he was not even Japanese.
“He is disturbing society,” wrote one Twitter user. “He’s an anti-citizen,” charged another.
Perhaps anticipating the criticism, Yasuda’s only statement upon arrival, read to reporters by his wife Myu, was dominated by an apology.
“I apologise for causing such trouble and worry, but thanks to all of you, I was able to come home safely,” he said. [AFP]
You can read more at the link, but what made things worse for Yasuda was that he was once taken hostage in Iraq in 2004 as well. This guy is obviously doing something wrong to be taken hostage by Islamic extremists twice. With that said there is even a South Korean angle to this story:
And detractors have claimed Yasuda is not even Japanese, partly as the result of a bizarre hostage video showing him and another captive in Syria that emerged in August.
Despite speaking Japanese, he identified himself as a South Korean called “Omar”, apparently after his kidnappers banned him from revealing his identity or nationality.
“This guy isn’t even Japanese,” wrote one Twitter user. “He should go back to his country, South Korea,” added another.
That is pretty bizarre, but I am glad the guy made it safely back to Japan, but I think he should contemplate a career change.
This undated file photo shows Minister of Unification Cho Myoung-gyon (Yonhap)
Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon held meeting with defectors in Seoul on Wednesday where he apologized for his controversial decision to prevent a defector-turned-journalist from covering recent inter-Korean talks, a participant said.
Cho had a lunch meeting with representatives of three North Korean defector groups at a Seoul restaurant to explain his position on the controversy and listen to defectors’ opinions on pending inter-Korean issues.
One participant said after the meeting, “Minister Cho said sorry and made an apology for excluding a defector-turned-journalist from the coverage of inter-Korean talks.”
The minister recently caused a stir by excluding a defector-turned-journalist of the conservative Chosun Ilbo daily newspaper from the pool of reporters covering high-level inter-Korean talks held at the truce village of Panmunjom on Oct. 15. [Chosun Ilbo]
Could you imagine what the reaction would be from mainstream journalists if the Trump administration cracked down on fake news put out by liberal websites? The Moon administration does this against conservative websites and there is not a peep so far about it from so called journalists:
Justice Minister Park Sang-ki called on prosecutors Tuesday to crack down on fake news, saying the spread of false information undermines public trust in society and can lead to serious political and economic damages. (……)
Opposition parties fired at Lee, saying the Moon Jae-in administration was out to suppress freedom of speech.
In a Justice Ministry press release Tuesday, Park ordered prosecutors to crack down on fake news and track whoever was responsible for its production and distribution. In cases in which serious falsehoods are clear, prosecutors were told to “actively start” investigations even before a formal complaint had been submitted to them.
The Justice Ministry said it planned to collect cases that local courts ruled to have been fake news and pass them on to the police, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Communications Standards Commission in order to request assistance in deleting them from the internet, monitoring any further spread and educating society about their false nature.
The Justice Ministry denied Park’s orders amounted to a violation of freedom of speech, saying authorities were trying to tackle the spread of fake information, which actually “disturbs” the public’s right to know and “threatens the sphere of democratic public debate.” [Joong Ang Ilbo]
What makes this crackdown even more dubious is that the Druking Scandal that linked the Moon administration to election manipulation through false comment liking software has quietly went away.
The South Korean left’s war on conservative media continues, but credit to the New York Times for taking notice of what is going on in South Korea:
Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon of South Korea in Seoul in August. He said misinformation about his visit to Ho Chi Minh’s compound in Vietnam had been “vicious.”
South Korea announced a sweeping crackdown on “fake news” on Tuesday, calling it “a destroyer of democracy.” Conservative critics of the government, however, cried foul, accusing it of trying to impede freedom of speech.
Speaking at a cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon said that fake news had spread so widely in South Korea that it was stymying not only citizens’ privacy but also the country’s national security and foreign policies, including its relations with North Korea.
Mr. Lee did not offer examples. But he was furious last week after he visited Vietnam for the state funeral for its president, Tran Dai Quang. While in Hanoi, he visited the stilt house of Ho Chi Minh and wrote in the visitors’ book at the compound that he felt “humble” before the “great” Vietnamese leader. South Korea fought against his Communist forces alongside the Americans during the Vietnam War.
So of course the Prime Minister has declared war on fake news and wants a new law to regulate the news:
Mr. Lee encouraged government agencies to report fake news to the law enforcement authorities for investigation. He also called for a new law regulating such information, which some lawmakers in his Democratic Party had already been advocating.
Opposition lawmakers denounced the government’s move as an attempt to silence criticism, especially YouTube videos used by conservative critics to attack the progressive government of President Moon Jae-in, whom they often call a North Korean stooge. Progressives have long criticized those channels as a main source of inaccurate and unfair information.
“They can already punish distribution of false information under the existing laws,” Park Dae-chul, a legislator affiliated with the conservative opposition Liberty Korea Party, said in a statement. “I cannot help suspecting that this is an attempt to crack down on right-wing podcasts. They want to shut down the voices the government doesn’t want to hear.”
ROK Drop readers may recall how the Korean left has already taken over control of most of the mainstream media in the country through union violence and those they don’t control they have threatened with legal action. They have even had conservative journalists arrested for libel.
The Moon administration is taking these actions because they need to change the South Korean public’s opinion of North Korea and Kim Jong-un. Conservative critics who keep bringing up North Korea’s poor human rights record, past atrocities, terrorism, and other inconvenient truths have to be silenced to continue to shape pro-North public messaging.
The Moon administration’s ultimate goal is a confederation with North Korea and he can’t realize that without the support of the South Korean public.
It would be helpful if the article would have specified which news outlets were not invited to the news conference. Maybe the embassy only invited major news outlets and not smaller ones?:
Ambassador Harry Harris
New U.S. Ambassador Harry Harris held his first news conference Thursday since taking the job. The former admiral invited several newspapers and broadcasters, but others were not invited.
Certainly, it was his prerogative to invite who he wished, but this approach often carries risks.
In Harris’ case, it could send a wrong message not just to the uninvited media outlets but by extension their readership or audiences.
The “wrong” message is that the new ambassador is emulating his boss, President Donald Trump, picking choosing from the media so he can speak to outlets he views as favorable (in Trump’s case, Fox) and lumping the rest as fake news producers (in Trump’s case, CNN).
If he was following Trump’s lead, then it would not be a wrong message but an intended one. [Korea Times]
Media cliches are a trove of unintentional insight into the running 20-year failure of the engagement hypothesis. See also, "rare glimpse." https://t.co/khZ8LYTiVJ
Eight officials of South Korean TV station JTBC will visit North Korea’s capital Pyongyang next week to discuss inter-Korean exchange in the field of media and the opening of the broadcaster’s bureau there.
It will become the first case of inter-Korean cooperation in media since inter-Korean military tension subsided early this year.
Seoul’s unification ministry approved their visit to the North late Friday. The ministry’s approval is a must for South Korean citizens to visit the North since the two Koreas are technically still at war with each other because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.
The ministry said the JTBC delegation, headed by its newsroom managing director Kwon Suk-chun, will visit the North from July 9 to 12, during which time they will meet with North Korean broadcasters and officials from the National Reconciliation Council, which invited the delegation to the North.
The purpose of the visit is to discuss “inter-Korean exchange in the field of media and JTBC’s opening of a Pyongyang bureau,” said the ministry in a message sent to reporters. It didn’t give further details. [Korea Times]
