This guy is quite the scumbag to have found a passed out Japanese woman in front of his hotel room and instead of notifying the hotel manager he decided to carry her into his room and rape her:
A U.S. sailor must serve 2½ years of hard labor for raping an intoxicated Japanese woman at a Naha hotel, an incident that sparked anti-base protests and contributed to tightened liberty restrictions on Okinawa.
Seaman Apprentice Justin Castellanos, 24, was sentenced Friday by a three-judge Naha District Court panel. His family was required to pay $21,789 in restitution to the victim, in addition to $2,842 from the U.S. military. Both amounts have been paid, officials said.
Prosecutors had sought a four-year prison term, but the chief judge said a lower sentence was accepted for the corpsman, who is assigned to Camp Schwab, because he had pleaded guilty and shown remorse for his actions. [Stars & Stripes]
Here is the part of the article I am surprised about and makes me wonder if this is part of the Japanese legal system where actions by the victim are taken into account to mitigate the sentence of the perpetrator?:
Judges also said the woman was partly to blame for becoming incapacitated and passing out in the hallway by the sailor’s room.
If this happened in the US we would be treated by a week long news cycle on victim blaming.
You would think the adultery charges this guy is facing would be the least of his troubles considering he is charged with rape as well:
Lawyers for a Schriever Air Force Base colonel argued Monday that a half-dozen adultery charges against him should be thrown out because the military’s law banning extramarital sex discriminates against heterosexuals.
Col. Eugene Marcus Caughey is headed for an August court-martial on charges of rape, assault, taking a dirty selfie and the adultery counts. He was in court Monday for a formal reading of the charges and to argue pretrial motions.
Maj. Keith Meister, one of three attorneys defending Caughey, told Air Force judge Col. Wes Moore that the military’s definition of adultery as sex between a man and a woman hasn’t keep place with its definition of marriage, which now includes same-sex couples. That’s because the military’s adultery law requires “sexual intercourse” as an element of guilt, which the Pentagon defines as an act between a man and a woman.
“A homosexual man or woman couldn’t commit adultery as defined,” Meister argued.
Caughey’s defense team maintains that because gay people get a pass, the charges violate the colonel’s rights under the 14th Amendment, which mandates equal protection under law. [Stars & Stripes]
You can read much more at the link, but one way to look at this is that the defense lawyer thinks the rape charge is weak and needs to get the adultery charges dropped because that is what the Air Force could use to really crush this guy. It will be interesting to see how this case turns out because it could lead to an entire redefinition of what is adultery in the US military.
Here is a general safety note to everyone, do not let strange people into your apartment that you just met in the elevator:
The 36-year-old sex offender arrested last Saturday for allegedly murdering a 60-year-old woman in Gaepo-dong, southern Seoul, did not know his victim as he claimed.
Police now say he stalked a complete stranger, sneaked into her house to rape her and then killed her so he wouldn’t get caught.
After his arrest on June 18, the suspect, surnamed Kim, claimed he met the victim while working at a real estate agency and had known her for about a month. He told police he asked her to lend him money and murdered her when she refused.
But investigators found no record of calls or texts between the two.
Under questioning, Kim changed his story. According to police, Kim saw the victim in a parking lot on June 14, two days before the murder. Security camera footage caught him in the same parking lot as the victim.
He tailed her as she drove to her residence because he wanted to develop a “good relationship” with her, Kim said, according to police. He followed her into the apartment building elevator and introduced himself as an insurance salesman, a profession he had started to study.
He asked to come inside her apartment to tell her about policies and she agreed. When she punched the code into the security keypad of her apartment, he noted the combination of numbers. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read the rest at the link, but this guy was out on parole after being jailed for 10 years for a prior sexual assault and was forced to wear an ankle bracelet. However, it broke and no one was tracking him when he committed the crime.
This is a horrible case of rape and forced prostitution in Gwangju:
Police requested arrest warrants for two men who locked up a runaway teenager and allegedly forced her into prostitution, Wednesday.
The Gwangju Dong-bu Police said the men, aged 20 and 18, had invited a 17-year-old runaway they befriended via a chatting app to live with them, then turned violent once she moved in.
The victim stayed with them for 12 days.
Police requested arrest warrants for two men who locked up a runaway teenager and allegedly forced her into prostitution, Wednesday.
The Gwangju Dong-bu Police said the men, aged 20 and 18, had invited a 17-year-old runaway they befriended via a chatting app to live with them, then turned violent once she moved in.
The victim stayed with them for 12 days. [Korea Herald]
The arrest of the three men accused of gang raping a Korean teacher on the remote Korean island Heuksan-do has finally happened. Due to the public outrage it appears the Korean police are not going to give the perpetrators the benefit of using the “I was drunk excuse” so commonly used in these cases:
Three suspects have been charged with premeditated rape and assault in the investigation of a sexual assault case involving a female teacher in her 20s by three local men from Heuksan Island in Sinan County, South Jeolla.
The three suspects were scheduled to be sent to the prosecution today for further investigation. Each is a father of children in kindergarten, elementary or middle school. The children of two of the suspects are attending the school where the victim worked. They were arrested by police last Saturday, after the victim reported the crime.
One of the suspects, surnamed Park, 49, owns the restaurant where the teacher was having dinner prior to the crime on May 21. He and one other suspect, Lee, 34, are accused of having invited the teacher to join them and getting her drunk.
After the victim became intoxicated, Park brought her to a building at an elementary school at 11:00 p.m in his car while Lee followed. About 30 minutes later, police say, the other suspect, Kim, 38, drove to the elementary school building, as well.
The police initially planned to impose less severe charges on the three since they claimed the rape was not planned.
“The testimonies of the three suspects didn’t match,” said a police officer. “They seemed to have lied when they said the crime was not plotted.”
But given that the three suspects live in the same neighborhood, contacted each other before and after the crime and went inside the building and raped the victim in sequence, the police charged them with premeditated rape. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link. Also for those wondering where Heuksan-do island is located at here is a Google Map of its location:
Incredibly the arrest of one of the suspects surnamed Kim has been linked to a 2007 rape in Daejon. The DNA found on the teacher matched the DNA found on the victim in the Daejon case. Due to the victim speaking out about this rape she may have gotten a serial rapist off the streets. It seems like if someone wanted to lie low and hide out somewhere Heuksando would be a place to go.
I would not be surprised if the perpetrators thought they could get away with this simply because they were on a remote island that had no police station:
Koreans have been appalled by a gang rape of a female teacher in her 20s on Heuksan Island off Sinan County, South Jeolla Province, after the case was made public last week. The predators included the parents of the teacher’s students, triggering public uproar about the blatant disregard for teachers and women.
The authorities need to ensure that the men in this case are duly punished and that the victim is given proper physical and emotional care before resuming her duties.
The rape case is a shocking reminder of the unsettling work conditions women are exposed to in remote areas such as Sinan County.
What is also shocking is the reaction from some of island’s residents, who seemed to be siding with the predators and blaming the victim for getting drunk in media interviews. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but the Korea Herald had more details about the case:
The police revealed details of the case on June 3. The victim’s distress call came in the wee hours of May 22.
According to police, the victim had dinner at one of the local restaurants where she was asked to join the three suspects, two of whom are parents of children at her school.
The men insisted that the victim drink, despite her repeated refusal as she had plans to explore the village the next day.
Once the victim was inebriated, one of the men volunteered to drop her home and raped her at her residence, followed by the other two. [Korea Herald]
Some may say this is victim blaming, but I think it is just common sense to not get drunk alone with people you just met in a foreign country you know nothing about, unless of course they used a date rape drug against her which is an entirely different story. With that said lets hope these three guys are vigorously investigated by Korean authorities which have a well established track record of poorly handling sexual assault cases like this:
Three Korean males have been arrested on charges of gang-raping a Swedish tourist they met at a nightclub in Hongdae, Seoul, police said Wednesday.
The men, in their 20s, allegedly asked the woman to go out the club, saying they would “show her Korean nightlife” on May 14, according to investigators.
The tourist and the men drank until the next morning, resulting in the victim becoming very drunk. The men then allegedly took her to a house, where they raped her and photographed her naked body.
The victim complained to the Swedish Embassy, which asked police to investigate the matter.
The three were arrested on May 24 after police viewed surveillance camera recordings and photos of the suspects left on the woman’s mobile phone, according to Mapo Police Station. [Korea Times]
The recent murder of a Korean woman in Gangnam is being used to bring attention to the issue of violent crime against women. Now Vice News has jumped on the bandwagon to publish an article criticizing a culture that allows violent crimes against women in South Korea to occur:
ourners march during a rally on Saturday to pay tribute to a South Korean woman who was stabbed to death near Gangnam Station in Seoul. [AP/NEWSIS]
For years now, South Korea has been trying to build a legal system to deal with the problem. As Dr Kyungja Jung, of the University of Technology Sydney told me, the country has come far since the days when police themselves would sexually assault detained female activists.”There has been tremendous changes in legislation, services, and programs for the victims,” she said.
Neither is South Korea the only country struggling with the issue. All countries experience some baseline level of sexism and the latest numbers from the World Health Organisation suggest 35 percent of women worldwide have experienced sexual violence.
But South Korea, a country with one of the most influential youth cultures in Asia, is also a society with a deep gender inequality according to the World Economic Forum which ranks the nation 117 out of 142, putting it alongside Qatar and Nigeria.
This is a subject Koreans do not like to discuss, partly because defamation laws in the country are strong, making criticism of the government, police, or major corporations dangerous. Many of those I contacted over the last two weeks were afraid to talk for fear of a lawsuit, though few would say so outright.
When they responded, they were often “too busy.” One person who worked in a frontline support service for rape victims told someone who had contacted them on my behalf: “This is a sensitive issue and I am Korean.”
Those more willing to speak out were young activists. One male activist who worked on a team which monitored rapists on Sora.net told me that in 1995, seven out of 10 women were victims of violent crimes, but that number has increased to nine out of 10. Because I can’t speak Korean, I cannot easily verify those numbers, but I asked him why he thought that was. [Vice News]
You can read much more at the link, but in my opinion this article is poor journalism which this last excerpted paragraph is an example of. The writer admits that he can’t verify the statistic that 9 out of 10 women in South Korea were victims of violent crimes, but went ahead and published it anyway. If 90% of the women in Korea are victims of violent crime there would be a political revolution to improve public safety. The President is a woman so does anyone think she would stand for such a thing?
Poor Example
A random murder by a mentally deranged homeless person that had been in and out of psychiatric hospitals does not suddenly make South Korea a haven for violent crime against women. Speaking of this murderer the article made no mention that he was schizophrenic and instead led readers to believe he simply killed the woman because he hated women. This narrative is about as honest as the “gentle giant” narrative used by the US media after the Michael Brown shooting.
As far as some of the other examples used in the article such as the Australian woman interviewed and the man acquitted of rape because he had a curved man part I would like to hear the other side of the story because often these stories are never as simple as advocates claim them to be. With that all said the premise that South Korea has a problem investigating sexual assault cases I think is true, I just hate tabloid journalism being used to make this point.
Past Investigations
In the past South Korean authorities were just incompetent with dealing with violent crime against women. I can remember when a US soldier was raped shortly after she arrived at Incheon International Airport and the rapist was acquitted because the soldier did not resist enough. In another case the sentencing for rape was so light that whether the suspect committed robbery as was the focus of the case because it had more jail time. Then there is this case of a foreign English teacher who was brutally raped and forced to suffer police incompetence afterwards. Finally who can forget the Miryang Gang Rape case which was just a travesty.
I do have to admit that things have gotten better in recent years such as South Korea finally barring teachers convicted of sex crimes of getting their jobs back. Even the ROK military has launched a campaign to crackdown on sexual assault and harassment within their ranks which they have long been known for. What do the statistics say? Well they say arrests for rape have skyrocketed over the last decade.
It is important to keep in mind that just because arrests are up this does not necessarily mean that rape is up. It can be argued that due to awareness campaigns in South Korea women are now more likely to report rape and the police are taking the allegations more seriously.
How do these statistics stack up against the United States? With a population of 51 million people in South Korea and 20,045 rape arrests in 2014 this has a occurence rate of 1 in 2,544 people. The Department of Justice reported 284,350 rapes in the United States in 2014 and with a population of 318 million this comes out to an occurrence rate of 1 in 1,118 people. This is higher than South Korea, but keep in mind difference in statistic compilation does make comparisons difficult, but does give an indication that rapes are lower in South Korea than the US.
Conclusion
Today I think the problem is mostly how Korean police look differently at alcohol related sexual assaults than other countries. If Korea is like the US, the vast majority of rape cases are probably he said/she said cases that involve alcohol. When alcohol is involved South Korean authorities are well known for showing more leniency towards perpetrators though in recent years there has been some changes to the law. In the United States alcohol is not considered the mitigating factor for committing crime like it is in South Korea. In fact at least in the US military alcohol has been used as factor to over prosecute people for sexual assault.
This is an area I think women in Korea need to be aware of that a date rape type of scenario after a night of drinking alcohol, it is likely to be more difficult to get Korean authorities to vigorously investigate and prosecute the perpetrator. So looking at the facts South Korea does not necessarily have a violent crime problem against women, it just has a different perspective in regards to how vigorously it will prosecute these crimes when it involves alcohol. This perspective appears to be slowly changing with the increased rape arrests and I would not be surprised if arrests continue to increase in the coming years as societal attitudes towards the crime continue to change.
After all the inaccurate reporting by the Associated Press over the No Gun Ri issue in South Korea I keep a healthy bit of skepticism when reading an article like this. There is probably some truth to this especially considering the sexual assaults against deaf students at the Gwangju Inwha School that were uncovered a few years ago. However, how much truth there is to this story I just don’t know. What I do find interesting is how in the Korean media little is being mentioned about this story that is making huge headlines in the US:
In this undated image provided by the Committee Against Institutionalizing Disabled Persons, a civic group representing the former inmates at the Brothers Home, guards unload children from a truck in Busan, South Korea.
The 14-year-old boy in the black school jacket stared at his shoes, his heart pounding, as the policeman accused him of stealing a piece of bread.
Even now, more than 30 years later, Choi Seung-woo weeps when he describes all that happened next.
The policeman yanked down the boy’s pants and sparked a cigarette lighter near Choi’s genitals until he confessed to a crime he didn’t commit.
Then two men with clubs came and dragged Choi off to the Brothers Home, a mountainside institution where some of the worst human rights atrocities in modern South Korean history took place.
A guard in Choi’s dormitory raped him that night in 1982 – and the next, and the next. So began five hellish years of slave labour and near-daily assaults, years in which Choi saw men and women beaten to death, their bodies carted away like garbage.
Choi was one of thousands – the homeless, the drunk, but mostly children and the disabled – rounded up off the streets ahead of the 1988 Seoul Olympics, which the ruling dictators saw as international validation of South Korea’s arrival as a modern country.
An Associated Press investigation shows that the abuse of these so-called vagrants at Brothers, the largest of dozens of such facilities, was much more vicious and widespread than previously known, based on hundreds of exclusive documents and dozens of interviews with officials and former inmates. [Associated Press]
Statistics from the 
