South Korea: Yoon family cartoons

(Source- 알리미 황희두 youtube 11.21 cartoon original source Cha Yoo-rak) "This is a normal country." Before the court addressing them, "defendant Yoon Seok-yeol" (the conservative presidential candidate, center), "defendant Kim Gon-hee" (Yoon's wife, the prospective first lady, left) and "defendant Choi Eun-seun" (Yoon's mother in law, right). All three depicted with the list of their alleged crimes on their backs. Kim Gon-hee: Stock price fixing, unlawful sponsorship, fraudulent credentials, Ph.D. plagiarism suspicion, fake life. Yoon Seok-yeol: Coverup of bribery investigation, negligent investigation of financial scandals, interference in former prime minister Han Myeong-suk's investigation, unlawful investigation of sitting judges, instigating private charges while in public office (against political enemies), and finally, insubordination and "coup d'etat." Choi Eun-soon: unlawful income, forged proof of financial status, stock price manipulation, memorial park fraud suspicion, and other financial fraud.

(Source- 알리미 황희두 youtube 11.21 cartoon original source Cha Yoo-rak) This cartoon depicts the difference in the South Korean media treatment of former Justice Minister Cho Guk's daughter, Cho Min, (top) as compared to the deferential treatment of Yoon Seok-yeol's wife (bottom). On the top, the group of angry journalists say, "You dare to call us journalist trash?* Our physical strength is enhanced by practicing often." On the bottom the journalists encountering Kim Gon-hee's falsified background, and her alleged involvement in the Deustche Motors stock price fixing scheme, choose to remain mute, while saying they are zealously engaged in deep meditation.

*Reporter 기자 + trash 쓰레기 = 기레기 journalist trash. The contraction is a relatively new word in Korean that is widely used in independent media commentary, particularly on the left. When encounting accusations such as these against Yoon and his family in independent media, the right typically refers to it as fake news ( 가짜 뉴스 ). Yet there have been very few successful defamation suits against the independent media that have reported on these accusations and the evidence supporting them.

Cho Guk's wife, Chung Kyung-shim, was convicted of forging her daughters voluntary service award certificate, allegedly destroying evidence, and investing under a false name at her first trial. Professor Chung is in prison, pending appeal, after a sentence of four years despite her obvious bad health. Cho Guk is also fighting criminal charges but is not in pre-trial detention. Cho Guk's daughter, Cho Min, was stripped of her degree by a university under questionable circumstances based upon the allegedly "forged" certificate. Charges were instigated against the family without prior investigation by Yoon Seok-yeol, described by critics as a "coup d'etat" designed to derail the democratic administration's judicial and electoral reform initiatives. In October 2019, after the charges were instigated, over a million people assembled in the streets of Seoul to protest. It is alleged that the chief witness against Cho Guk's wife, the former university president where she worked, was threatened and otherwise unlawfully induced to elicit false testimony. Because there was no prior investigation, the prosecutors issued an unprecedented eighty search warrants in an effort to find grounds to substantiate the politically motivated prosecutions. The protacted litigation is still underway. The press cooperated fully with prosecution efforts ( 검언유착 ) to defame and vilify Cho Guk and his family. Cho Guk has won several defamation suits on behalf of his family.

On the other hand, political actors in the prosecutors' offices and judicial branch until recently have stonewalled and derailed all lawsuits and investigations against Yoon Seok-yeol's family for years without comment by the South Korean media. Recently, Choi Eun-soon was convicted of unlawfully operating a medical rehabilitation facility and illegally receiving approximately 2 billion won in tax supported medical funds. She was imprisoned by the trial court but the reviewing court released her pending the appeal of her case. Charges against Yoon will be probably be referred to the newly formed Committee to Investigate High Public Officials. Typically, none of these allegations against the right wing candidate for president or his family had been reported in South Korean mainstream media nor their English language outlets. There has been some reporting of the General Prosecutor's office being implicated in the preparation of private lawsuits against political rivals. The election law violations have not been linked to Yoon as yet but only his direct subordinate. The English language press worldwide genarally avoids the topic as well. However, similar to the South Korean major media outlets, articles in the US press and VOA Korea broadcasts are critical of the democratic administration, its policies, and the democratic party's current presdidential candidate, Lee Jae-myung.