Tag: rape

Mayor and Community Leaders Apologize for the 2004 Miryang Rape Case

South Korea has definitely come a long ways in the past twenty years in regards to how it treats sex crimes. The Miryang Rape Case was a major example of how lenient the government treated sex crimes at the time:

Government officials and community leaders in the southeastern city of Miryang, South Gyeongsang Province, jointly issued a public apology Tuesday for an infamous gang rape case that occurred two decades ago, saying it was “all of our responsibility.”

“We all share the responsibility to make a better community, yet we (the people of Miryang) have not apologized or reflected on this tragedy, just because it is not directly related to our family or friends,” said Mayor An Byeong-gu, a Miryang native himself who took helm of the city in April this year. “We apologize for everyone who has been hurt.”

Officials of the city government, city council and some 80 civic and religious groups based in the area participated in the public apology at the city hall, collectively bowing their heads for one of the worst sex crimes in South Korean history. They did not take questions from reporters who attended the event.

The 2004 Miryang gape rape case has recently reentered the national consciousness after YouTubers began revealing the personal information of some the alleged perpetrators. Forty-four high school boys in South Gyeongsang Province were alleged to have brutally assaulted a then-middle school girl physically and sexually over the course of a year, but all of them escaped criminal punishment on account of them being minors at the time.

A subsequent investigation found that four other underage girls, including the primary victim’s older sister, had been raped by the group who called themselves the “Miryang Coalition.”

What fueled public furor was the widespread victim-blaming by the local community and secondary damage inflicted by the police. A 2005 survey of 645 residents of the city showed that 64 percent pointed the finger of blame at the victim for the heinous crimes, and a police officer’s blunder led to the victim’s family having their information leaked to the public.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but there was another horrible sex crime back in 2004 that involved a U.S. Soldier getting rape by a taxi driver soon after she arrived in Korea:

Korean Man Working for NASA Arrested for Sexually Assaulting Six Women in Texas

According to the article there is likely more than six victims that this guy has drugged and sexually assaulted:

The U.S. media released the employee’s identity while a Korean man who worked as an engineer at NASA was accused of sexually assaulting six women.

According to the Harris County Prosecutor’s Office in Texas on the 9th (local time), A (37) was charged with sexual assault on six women he met through a dating app between 2019 and 2022.

The prosecution said, “We approached women by saying that he attends NASA,” adding, “We believe that there will be additional victims in that he often traveled abroad such as Japan, the UK, and Canada.”

The investigation reportedly began with a website that shares the experiences of sexual assault victims.

There was also testimony that A secretly fed drugs and became unconscious or threatened to release sex videos if he reported them to the police.

Maeil Kyeongchae

You can read more at the link.

Man Receives Life in Prison After Rape and Murder of Woman on a Seoul Hiking Trail

Hopefully they don’t ever let this guy out of prison on parole:

This file photo shows Choi Yun-jong, the suspect accused of attempting to rape, then murdering a woman in her 30s at a hiking trail in southern Seoul on Aug. 25, 2023. (Yonhap)

This file photo shows Choi Yun-jong, the suspect accused of attempting to rape, then murdering a woman in her 30s at a hiking trail in southern Seoul on Aug. 25, 2023. (Yonhap)

A Seoul court sentenced the suspect in last year’s attempted rape and killing of a woman on a hiking trail in Seoul to life in prison Monday, saying he should be separated from society forever.

Choi Yun-jong, 30, was indicted on charges of fatally beating, throttling and attempting to rape the victim he randomly picked on a hillside hiking trail in the Sillim neighborhood on Aug. 17.

The victim, an elementary school teacher in her 30s, was left unattended for some 20 minutes before being taken to a hospital, but died two days later.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Korean Supreme Court Confirms 20 Year Sentence for Spin Kick Rapist

It is good to see how stringent the rape sentences have been getting in South Korea because it was not like this in the past:

In this file photo, a man, known as the "spin kick assailant" for his brutal attacks on a female stranger, leaves a court in the southeastern port city of Busan on June 12, 2023. (Yonhap)

In this file photo, a man, known as the “spin kick assailant” for his brutal attacks on a female stranger, leaves a court in the southeastern port city of Busan on June 12, 2023. (Yonhap)

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a 20-year prison sentence for the so-called spin kick assailant in the southeastern port city of Busan, who caused social outrage last year due to his brutal attacks on a female stranger for the purpose of rape.

The defendant, whose identity has been withheld, is accused of following the victim, to whom he had no personal connection, for 10 minutes all the way to her apartment’s elevator on May 22, 2022, knocking her out with a roundhouse kick to the back of the head and then continually assaulting her until she passed out.

He was given a 12-year prison term on charges of attempted murder by a district court in October last year, but the Busan High Court raised the sentence to 20 years in June after prosecutors changed his charge to attempted rape murder after detecting his DNA in her jeans.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Korean Woman Wants Rape Case Retried After She Was Punished for Fighting Back too Excessively

Considering this happened 59 years ago the fact this woman was punished for fighting back to excessively and injuring this rapist is not surprising to me. This is because back in 2004 a 19-year old U.S. Soldier was raped by a Korean taxi driver and the man was let go because she did not fight back enough. Fortunately Korea seems to be taking rape more seriously and hopefully this woman can get some justice after all these decades:

Choi Mal-ja, 77, is awaiting the Supreme Court's decision on her request for a retrial of her sexual assault case nearly 60 years ago. This photo, taken May 2, shows Choi partaking in a press conference in front of the Supreme Court in southern Seoul that day. Choi was assaulted by a man in her hometown of Gimhae, South Gyeongsang, in 1964. She bit off his tongue in what she said was an act of self-defense. The court issued a stronger sentence on her than on the man. [NEWS1]

Choi Mal-ja, 77, is awaiting the Supreme Court’s decision on her request for a retrial of her sexual assault case nearly 60 years ago. This photo, taken May 2, shows Choi partaking in a press conference in front of the Supreme Court in southern Seoul that day. Choi was assaulted by a man in her hometown of Gimhae, South Gyeongsang, in 1964. She bit off his tongue in what she said was an act of self-defense. The court issued a stronger sentence on her than on the man. [NEWS1]

Choi Mal-ja, 77, is still expressing rage at the courts nearly six decades after she was sexually assaulted by a stranger.    
   
On May 6, 1964, Choi was an 18-year-old walking down a street in Gimhae, South Gyeongsang, when a man surnamed Roh, three years older and a complete stranger to her, asked her for directions on the road.  
   
Choi, trying to show him the way, walked a little with him, then in an alleyway, Roh suddenly turned and pushed her to the ground.   

She tried to fight back but he threw her to the ground, at least three times, according to her testimony in court.    
   
The next thing Choi knew, she was on the ground on her back and Roh was on top of her. He pinched her nose so that she had to open her mouth and was trying to forcibly kiss her.  
   
Choi bit hard, though she later told the court that she didn’t even know she was biting off the man’s tongue, before running away from him. (………)

The police, without the power to indict, passed over Choi’s case to the prosecution, asking them to indict Roh on the charges. But the prosecution dropped the charge of attempted rape and indicted Roh for trespassing and intimidation with weapons.    
   
Choi told the court that all the actions she took were out of self-defense. Still, the court handed down a stronger sentence on Choi, giving her a suspended sentence of 10 months for inflicting a serious physical injury to Roh.  
   
In contrast, Roh received a suspended sentence of only six months for trespassing and intimidation with weapons.    
   
Choi’s case has regained traction in recent years after she requested a retiral of her case. Her case was dubbed on social media a “59-year-old Me Too case.”  
   
Experts have said that the prosecution’s decision to drop the attempted rape charge on Roh may have made a difference in the final rulings, significantly weakening Choi’s case against Roh.    
   
The court at the time had said that Choi’s actions of self-defense were “excessive.”  
   
“Even if her action was that of a young woman to protect herself from forced kissing, her act of self-defense went so far as to cut off the tongue of the perpetrator and inflicted a lifelong injury that bars him from speaking,” said the court in its ruling. “Such defensive action was deemed, both generally and objectively, excessive compared to what the laws allow.”  

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Korean Man Convicted of Rape 13 Years Ago Found to Be Working as an Elementary School Teacher

You would think this person would have been on a sex offender registry that would have prevented him from working with children:

Gyeonggi Province’s Office of Education said Tuesday that a person convicted of the sexual assault of a vulnerable middle school student 13 years ago later worked as a teacher at an elementary school, confirming a recent online revelation that sparked public outrage.

The office said the person, however, is currently not working at the school. It refused to give more details, citing the protection of personal information.

An anonymous claim was made last Saturday on an online community, Bobae Dream, that one of the 16 perpetrators of the 2010 sexual attack on the underage girl has become a teacher at an elementary school in Gwanggyo, Gyeonggi Province, while another had become a fireman. “This is where (he or she) crossed the line,” said the post’s writer, who claimed to be an acquaintance of the two.

The 2010 group rape case belatedly sparked public outcry in 2012, when the penalties the offenders received became known — one year of supervision by a probation officer and 40 hours of reformative education. The reason for the leniency was because the offenders were minors at the time of the crime and they had no previous criminal record.

Korea Herald

Indian Man Living in Australia Faces 13 Counts of Raping Korean Women in Sydney

It is amazing how many women this guy was able to rape before finally having the police investigate him:

A man described as a “prominent member” of Sydney’s Indian community is currently on trial for 13 counts of rape, among multiple other sex crimes, in Australia.

Balesh Dhankhar, former president of the Indian diaspora organization OFBJP Australia, stands accused of rape by five women, all of whom are Korean and in their mid-20s. The women claimed that they were lured by Dhankhar under the pretext of offering them jobs before he drugged and raped them in his apartment between January 2018 and October 2018.

Dhankhar reportedly posted a job ad for Korean-to-English translation work on the classified ads site Gumtree to lure women to Sydney’s Hilton Hotel bar, which is located near his apartment. 

Next Shark

You can read more at the link, but there are many more women out there that he assaulted because the police found 47 videos of him raping unconscious women. Incredibly this turd is pleading not guilty. I assume his defense is going to be that every woman he had sex with did so consensually and then passed out. I think it is unlikely that a jury will believe that.

Uijeongbu Citizens Protest Release of Sex Criminal that Raped 11 Children

It is pretty amazing that this guy only got 15 years for raping 11 children. The odds seem high that at some point he is going to do this again:

Uijeongbu Mayor Kim Dong-geun, sixth from left, joins a protest rally with Uijeongbu citizens and politicians, in front of a facility that child rapist Kim Geun-sik was scheduled to enter, Saturday. The prosecution requested another arrest warrant for Kim on the same day. Screenshot from Kim Dong-geun’s Facebook account

The prosecution requested the court to issue an arrest warrant for serial child rapist Kim Geun-sik, Saturday, two days before he was set to be released from prison, as a woman filed charges that he raped her 16 years ago when she was a minor.

Kim was expected to be released this Monday after serving 15 years in jail on charges of having raped 11 minors.

According to the prosecution, the victim recently recognized Kim’s face as the man who sexually assaulted her 16 years ago, as the media began to report on his release using his mugshot photo. She filed new charges against him with the prosecution.

Prosecutors said they analyzed relevant evidence and proved that Kim had been the attacker in the case. 

“Not only is Kim’s crime very serious, but also there’s a possibility of Kim running away as he has no permanent residence at the moment. He could recommit such crimes, or do harm to the victims. That’s why we requested an arrest warrant,” the prosecution said.

If Kim is released Monday, he is scheduled to move into a facility affiliated with the justice ministry that helps released prisoners reintegrate into society, by offering housing as well as psychiatric, educational and other services, similar to what is known in English as a “halfway house.” As Kim was assigned to enter such a facility located in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province, residents who have children attending school nearby have expressed their worries. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Suspect in Death of College Student also Charged with Filming the Rape Scene

This is a pretty horrible crime that happened at a university in Incheon:

The suspect in a campus rape and death case at Inha University leaves a police station in Incheon, west of Seoul, as he is escorted to the prosecution on July 22, 2022. (Yonhap)

Police referred a university freshman accused of raping a schoolmate and causing her to fall to her death to the prosecution Friday for potential indictment with an additional charge of filming the rape scene, officials said. 

“I am sincerely sorry,” said the 20-year-old student of Inha University in Incheon, west of Seoul, as he was transferred to the prosecution, without responding to questions from reporters, including on whether and why he did not help her immediately after the fall. 

He was detained by police last Friday hours after the victim was found dead apparently after a fall from a campus building. She was found lying naked on the ground at 3:49 a.m. reportedly with blood on her head, mouth and ears.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

69 Foreign College Students Being Investigated for Statutory Rape of Korean Middle School Student

This has to be the largest rape case I have ever heard of:

Nearly 70 foreign students at a local university have been accused of alleged statutory rape of a teenage girl, according to police, Tuesday. 

Gangwon Provincial Police Agency said it is questioning 69 foreign students and graduates of a university in the province for allegedly engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse with the middle school student on nearly a 100 occasions since last December.

The students were all of foreign nationalities, including those from Nepal and Bangladesh.

According to the police, they lured the victim into having sex through social media by offering snacks and asking her to hang out at their house. The law enforcement authorities viewed this as statutory rape as the students were aware of the fact that the victim was a minor. 

Under the Korean law, adults who engage in sexual activity with a child younger than 16, or the age of consent, may be charged with child sexual abuse or rape, if they were aware of the victim’s age at the time of the incident.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.