NOT NORTH KOREA!
Former Justice Minister Cho Kuk is the plaintiff in a defamation case against a South Korean journalist who made claims about Cho in a 2018 YouTube video. File Photo by Yonhap
Aug. 18 (UPI) -- Reporters Without Borders is calling for the immediate release of a South Korean journalist who was sentenced to eight months in prison on charges of defamation.
The Paris-based global journalism watchdog said in statement Tuesday Woo Jong-chang, the journalist who has been charged by former Justice Minister Cho Kuk, is being punished under an "archaic law" after Woo refused to disclose the identity of a source he quoted in a YouTube video.
The sentence, which was delivered to Woo on July 17, came after Cho took action in response to a video uploaded in March 2018.
In the video, Woo alleged Cho met with Judge Kim Se-yoon at an upscale Korean restaurant near the presidential Blue House, according to South Korean news service Newsis. Cho was President Moon Jae-in's senior presidential secretary at the time. Kim was the judge who convicted former President Park Geun-hye on multiple counts of abuse and sentenced her to 24 years in prison in April 2018
According to Woo, Cho's meeting with Kim occurred in January or early February of that year, ahead of Park's conviction. This year, Cho sued Woo on charges of defamation while denying meeting Kim.
"The plaintiff, a former minister of justice who served as a senior presidential secretary at the time of the alleged conspiracy, recently posted a message on his Twitter account threatening the same prosecution on any journalist willing to continue the research that Woo Jong-chang began," Reporters Without Borders said Tuesday.
In July, Judge Ma Seong-yeong said Woo did "not even go through the process of confirming even the minimal number of facts" as a journalist.
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The remarks Woo made in his YouTube video "have very serious implications" because they suggest the president's office interfered in Park's trial, Ma said.
South Korean conservatives have said Moon should pardon Park, who was convicted of colluding with a friend, Choi Soon-sil, so Choi could receive millions of dollars from major South Korean corporations.
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