Seoul City Councilwoman Yeo Myeong Sued for Libel by Minjok NGO

2019-5-22, Tara O

Minjok Moonje Yeongooso (민족문제연구소) or MinMoonYeon (민문연) for short (rough translation:  minjok issues institute) filed a lawsuit against Seoul City Councilwoman Yeo Myeong (여명), Liberty Korea Party, on April 28, 2019  for “defamation and promotion of information network utilization and information protection” in response to her written comment on February 18, 2019. (“Minjok” means people or nation, but is used more narrowly to describe ethnic Koreans; it is a term favored by North Korea to emphasize excluding foreigners or any foreign influence. The far left also uses it in that sense.)

She wrote that the City of Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education plans to spend ₩100,000,000 ($84,000) to buy “300 Anti-Japan Songs” books published by MinMoonYeon in 2017 and to distribute them to all the schools in Seoul. Each song book costs ₩75,000 ($63).  MinMoonYeon saw her pointing this out as problematic.   She also stated that among the “300 Anti-Japan Songs” were songs that praise the Chinese Communist Party, and MinMoonYeon criticized her for stating it.

Yeo further drew attention to the fact that the Deobureo Minjoo Party/Democratic Party of Korea-controlled City Council made the decision in 2016 to provide funds to 551 schools in Seoul to have them purchase the “Dictionary of Pro-Japanese Persons” (each ₩300,000 or $252), which is also published by MinMoonYeon.

She wrote the comment because the Seoul City taxes were given to MinMoonYeon.  She wanted to know what Minjok issues institute was and what their assertions were, so that she can inform the tax payers.  In other words, she was doing her job. She wrote that MinMoonYeon was portraying all on the Right as pro-Japan [Deoubureo Minjoo Party and the Moon’s Blue House have been labeling political opponents “Jeokpae” (deep rooted evil/accumulated ill), and lately “pro-Japan”], and questioned whether it is appropriate for the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education to provide ₩100,000,000 ($84,000) to such an organization.  (2:00) She pointed out several problems:

The Minjok issues institute made a ‘Dictionary of Pro-Japan Persons,’ using people who specialize in ‘Minjoong’ history.”  [‘Minjoong’ means people, but more specifically, has the connotation of proletariat and peasants–the term is normally used by the South Korea’s Far Left.]  Contrary to the findings of the government’s, ‘Truth Investigation Commission about Pro-Japan [Koreans]’ [held under the Rho Moo-hyun administration], they placed former president Park Chung Hee on the ‘pro-Japan’ list…The problem is that the Seoul City Education Superintendent bought these dictionaries and distributed them to schools in Seoul.” (2:38)

The Minjok issues institute also made a documentary called “100 Years War, which has numerous lies.” She continued “if one watches without much thinking, it gives the impression that Park Chung Hee is pro-Japan, Syngman Rhee’s Ph.D. degree is fake, and that all Rhee did was to have a good time, play around in the U.S., and then come over to Korea to establish the Republic of Korea.” (3:22)

Established in 1991, MoonMinYeon’s purpose as stated on its website is:

…to study the issues and tasks of modern and contemporary history in Korea and establish a refuted history through the settlement of the past history of Korea and Japan. We are taking the lead in clearing away the remnants of Japan’s imperial fascism, including a compilation of the dictionary of pro-Japan personnel [to ‘clear out’ those labeled as pro-Japan].

It also runs the Colonial History Museum near Seoul Station.

Yeo wrote that MinMoonYeon is an organization that introduces a twisted view of history this way:

After liberation, the [Korean] minjok should have been reunited, but Syngman Rhee, who was captivated by power, established a sovereign government, so Kim Il Sung also established a government in North Korea. Therefore, the Republic of Korea has the identity as the one that emerged after shattering the situation that was so close to unification.  So to unify the Korean Peninsula, Kim Il Sung resorts to war. However, on the Nakdong River front, the Korean Peninsula again misses the opportunity for unification because of the counterattack of the coalition forces and the South Korean armed forces. The Syngman Rhee government, which has held out with the U.S.’s power, conducts a dictatorship and is eventually driven out by students.  Since then, 4.19 seemed to have become a unification movement, opening the era of reconciliation with North Korea, but again a character called Park Chung Hee appeared in a coup d’etat and stopped the huge wheel of history that the people were rolling.”

MinMoonYeon claimed that what Yeo said were “false facts,” and that it’s “defamation,” and that they were only looking at Park Chung Hee and Syngman Rhee from a new perspective. (3:51)

Yeo said, “MinMoonYeon is a group that injects a distorted view of history into the general public in a militaristic way.” She pointed out that, to them, history means that the “working class must win” and that Minjok is “the absolute good.”

She further stated that “(MinMoonYeon) is an organization that views the two presidents Syngman Rhee and Park Chung Hee, who established the Republic of Korea and made anti-communist ideology rooted in the people, as well as the generations that industrialized the Republic of Korea, as traitors to history.”

Yeo has received phone call threats from pro-MinMoonYeon personnel, who have called her “pro-Japan” and cursed at her at length and hung up on her on at least three occasions.  (4:58) When the interviewer said the Councilwoman Yeo is young in her 20s and female, and it must have unnerved her, Yeo said she was taken aback by the threats and is a little bit concerned, because there is no security procedure to enter the Seoul City Council building, where she works.  (5:38)

Even before the lawsuit, MinMoonYeon, through Hangyeoreh and Media Today newspapers, attacked her by saying she is “a Seoul City Councilwoman who makes ridiculous assertions that Park Chung Hee was not pro-Japan” and then threatened to sue her.  (0:95)

The Seoul City Council has 110 council members, that are broken down as follows:

• Deobureo Minjoo Party/Democratic Party of Korea:  102
• Liberty Korea Party:  6
• Justice Party:  1
• Bareun Mirae Party:  1

Councilwoman Yeo Myeong is on the Permanent Committee on Education and is the only Liberty Korea Party member on that committee.  She said it is her job to find out information and to comment on activities that use the Seoul City taxes and city offices.

As the numbers show, Yeo is overwhelmingly in the minority.  To stand up in that situation to carry out her duty, she is brave.