Korea, the Weirdly Liberal Country

Does the title sound off to you? The traditionally patriarchal, conservative image that you have of the country might be a little outdated as it is weirdly liberal in a very specific way.

The pictures I’m posting up today are sensitive and will be offensive to many—trying to illustrate a point and provide reference.

In May of 2023, a car was illegally double parked in a lot at an apartment complex. The owner of the blocked car, a woman in her 30s, asked the owner of the blocking car to move his vehicle. Apparently, an argument followed. What was there to argue about?

… and the guy who was illegally parked started beating the woman, as you see in the above picture. The whole thing was recorded by a passerby. This guy used to be a body builder, as you might be able to tell with his size. He broke her ribs and spit on her afterwards. Long story short, he was sentenced to 2 years in prison. The prosecution office appealed the court’s decision, saying that the sentence was too light.

They will not reveal his identity. All to protect his personal rights.

One year prior, in May of 2022, a man in a building in Busan did a roundhouse kick (left yellow circle) to a totally unsuspecting woman in the head as she fell to the floor, defenseless. The man, as you can see, kept kicking her until she was knocked unconscious, carried her to where there was no closed-circuit building camera and sexually assaulted her.

She was very seriously injured, with an open head wound, damage to her brain nerves which caused temporary paralysis of her right leg, suffered amnesia, and a massive psychological trauma.

The perpetrator was sentenced to 12 years in prison on an attempted murder conviction. He appealed the decision, saying the sentence was too harsh. In the Appeals Court, the prosecution was successful in changing the man’s charge to “Attempted Murder after Rape.” (He denied the rape charge and they found his semen on the victim’s jeans.) The Appeals Court concurred with the prosecution, added 8 years and sentenced him to 20 years in prison. He again appealed the decision, saying that he cannot understand why he should stay in prison for so long. Not only that, he has also openly threatened **repeatedly** while imprisoned, when I get out, I’m going to find her and kill her. The case is being heard in the Supreme Court.

And they will not reveal his identity. To protect his personal rights.

You read about a 3rd grader attacking and slapping his teacher and the Vice Principal of the school **multiple** times, and threatening to sue his classmate for recording it with his phone, using all the Korean “F” words known, as a 9-year old. You read about middle school boys sexually harassing/assaulting their female teachers. You read about 12, 13-year olds gang-raping…

All of these cases go basically unpunished. And these little punks, coached by their parents and taught by precedents, claim the rights contained in the Korean version of the Juvenile Law which allows those under the age of 19 walk with a light slap on the wrist, if even that.

No identity is revealed. To a certain degree, I agree with it, but the situation has gotten out of hand.

In 2017, a then-16 year old high school girl kidnapped an 8-year old girl living in the same apartment complex, killed her at her house, cut the body into pieces, and disposed of the body at the rooftop of her high-rise apartment building in trash bags. Later, the killer admitted to discarding the inner organs in a food trash bag. This all happened within 2 hours.

What was so infinitely more horrifying was that this murderer had cut off the pinky finger of the victim, sliced a part of the victim’s lung, and gave them to an 18-year old acquaintance she met online as a gift, about 4 hours after the murder. It was later learned that the duo had been planning it for about 2 months—with the 18-year old saying in a text message “is the pinky finger pretty?” (I’ve left out a few details—it’s just too evil and gruesome.)

During the trials that went all the way up to the Korean Supreme Court, the murderer claimed 3 different versions of psychological disorder that were all proven to have been falsified. Guess who taught her how to make things up about her mental status. Her own father who’s a medical doctor.

The killer received 20 years in prison. And the accomplice, who spurred on the actual killer, ended up with 13 years.

“Kim” and “Bak”

And they will NOT reveal their identities. They’re known as “Kim,” the only daughter of a well-to-do doctor and “Bak,” daughter of a high-ranking executive of a major chaebol company in Seoul.

truth be told, their identities have been revealed by fellow students, but apparently this act is “illegal” although the govt hasn’t filed any charges.

The crime so unspeakably heinous and their parents’ response so disgusting that there has been a national petition to repeal the terms of the Juvenile Law that’s been abused so many times over the years. And for whatever reason, the government won’t budge, although there have been some fringe discussions about doing something.

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I tend to attribute this weird liberalism (I don’t even know what to call this, honestly) to the extremely draconian practices of the prior administrations under Park Chung-hee (박정희) and Jeon Doo-hwan (전두환). Koreans were so sick of the harsh and inhumane measures from the 1960s to 1980s, that they clamored for civil liberties and protection of personal rights and due process. Now it’s gone to the extreme opposite, to the point where even the ACLU might be embarrassed.

Here’s a hoping that the pendulum will swing back to a more sensible level.

** epilogue: There is a group of citizens that investigate these types of matters and reveal the perpetrators’ identities and publish them openly on YouTube. By the government stubbornly sitting on their ass and doing nothing, there has been a number of public lynching when the identities are revealed. Which in turn creates a more dangerous situation, I think.