More evidence why bloggers need to be very aware of Korea’s libel laws—Joe of ZenKimchi is in trouble, and Mike Hurt posts all about it [Scribblings of the Metropolitician].
Having had a close call with this issue myself, I feel for you, Joe. I really do. Good luck.
48 Comments
This is why it helps to know people if one is a foreign resident in Korea, otherwise, the system can eat one up since it is routinely played as a system of opportunity rather than a system of justice.
So if an employer rips you off and you win against them in court, writing the truth about what the employer did is illegal?
What the employer did was unacceptable but I really don’t see the point in him whining about his blog. Isn’t it the rule of the land that you cannot publicize any harmful information regarding individuals or companies? Isn’t that one of the reasons that tabloids use “actress name starting with S” or “K” instead of using real names. We all know how English teachers are treated here and kudos to him to standing up to the institution but you cannot break the law and expect sympathy for that. You have to obey the laws of the country you are in.
Would you accept honor killings in US by some Middle Eastern guy cos it’s legal in his home country? For all the noise Korea makes about being an international hub, it’s still not a truly open country. We have to understand that and act accordingly.
“Isn’t it the rule of the land that you cannot publicize any harmful information regarding individuals or companies? Isn’t that one of the reasons that tabloids use “actress name starting with S” or “K” instead of using real names. “
That rule seems to protect Korean nationals only. Ordinary foreigners accused of crimes get their full names printed in the papers, unlike Koreans who are identified as you described.
“Would you accept honor killings in US by some Middle Eastern guy cos it’s legal in his home country?”
There’s just one problem with your analogy. Honor killings aren’t actually legal in the countries where they take place. Usually the family gets an underaged male relative to murder the girl/woman because minors are treated very lightly by the courts.
Why are the names and faces protected?
Concerning honour killings, honour killings are generally accepted, and often celebrated, by the general community in Middle Eastern countries (excluding Israel).
I remember that.
“That rule seems to protect Korean nationals only. Ordinary foreigners accused of crimes get their full names printed in the papers, unlike Koreans who are identified as you described.”
Actually, the rule is often disregarded when the article is about certain Korean politicians or chaebols and their executives; which is no surprise given a clear line can be drawn between Korean media outlets based on their political alignment and business connections.
Now, what I’m curious about is whether any of the English teachers on the Korea Foreign Teacher Recruiting Association’s blacklist has ever filed charges for libel. Or violating Korean labor laws. Or both.
My guess is probably not.
Also, I’ve seen hagwon blacklists on the net–do the people who put them up fall under the libel laws? As Mr. Carr often says, Korea has rule BY law, not rule OF law.
I wonder: It was written in English. Wouldn’t that make it difficult for the boss to argue that his or her reputation was hurt and that it damaged his or her business? Besides, he can easily argue that his statements were made as a matter of ‘public-interest’, in which case libel would not been committed.
Haha, thanks Robert for the link to the blacklist of ESL teachers. I learned some new Korean, like 정신적으로 “to be fucked up” in this posting, by an astute employer. Fabulous website to really put the screw to those sneaky foreigners.
–Remort
S.K. Internet libel law by Kyu Ho-youm (PDF file):
http://www.law.unimelb.edu.au/.....%20web.pdf
“Singularly problematic about the punishment of internet libel under the Information and Communications Network Act is that it does not provide for any defences for libel through cybercommunication similar to what the Criminal Code recognises — publication of truthful defamation for the public interest.” So apparently Mr. ZenKimchi would have a very difficult time defending himself.
It’s not necessarily so protective of Koreans as many seem to assume. A particular example that comes to mind is the Hyundai Motor slush fund scandal (news broke April 2006, court cases wound up this February). I’ve no doubt the majority of names didn’t get published, but some pretty senior officials did get named. (hope this link works)
http://72.14.235.104/search?q=.....k&cd=1
The paper linked above by Prof. Kyu-Ho Youm is really very readable and sets out the issues quite clearly. Highly recommended — thanks for the link!
Years ago when I checked them out, the black and grey list for hakwons were hosted by people outside the nation. I seem to remember one “blacklist” got into some legal trouble, but a following “greylist” was set up by someone not in Korea and many of the posts were from anonymous expats.
Reading this, however, I am suprised we haven’t heard about this before with some posts over at Dave’s ESL Cafe.
My guess is that it isn’t worth it to most owners since they are willing to sign just about anybody even to the point of faking diplomas for people at times when they need bodies or hiring illegal ESLers.
But, in this one case, it seems this ESLer’s actions put the final nail in the coffin of the school. It was probably bankrupt already, but his legal action got assets frozen - which makes me happy - but it probably also pushed the scales to the point the owner wanted revenge.
If the guy doesn’t want to lose money, he out to make a run for the border. Go over to Japan for a year or go home for an extended vacation and come back in 6 months or a year. Take an extended vacation. I’d be willing to bet no follow up is done with immigration if he doesn’t brag about fleeing.
Or, just do what a lot of longer term expats have done - relocate on the other end of the state - head down to Pusan (or up to Seoul) and make the big bucks doing illegal teaching. It was never something I did, but I remember one long term illegal saying he always asked people who had been in country 1 or 2 years in the ESL game why they put up with all the crap and made so much less money and so much less freedom when teaching illegal was as easy as could be….
“Now, what I’m curious about is whether any of the English teachers on the Korea Foreign Teacher Recruiting Association’s blacklist has ever filed charges for libel. Or violating Korean labor laws. Or both.
My guess is probably not.”
The foreign English teachers in this country are sissies when it comes to any kind of follow-up/follow-through.
My estimate, after 6+ years here, is that 95% of foreigners don’t press charges when assaulted. Also I would say that 95% of the ripped-off foreigners don’t take their bosses to court.
The teachers here run to their home countries with their tails between their legs.
Man-up people! Check out that teacher blacklist, and if your name’s on it, SUE! Beat them at their game! Don’t just roll over and take it.
And if you’re assaulted here (and it happens ALOT), GO TO THE POLICE ASAP WITH A KOREAN FRIEND. I know so many people here that have been ganged-up on, and they don’t do a thing about it.
Mr. Gecko, assuming your statistics are true (did you know, 89% of statistics posted on the Net are bogus?) it might be the case that many people here to teach don’t have Korean friends or in fact any friends in Korea. They come here with Western assumptions about binding contracts and professional workplaces, and get shafted. That happened to me (although I’m not a teacher) and many foreigners I know. And there isn’t squat you can do about it because management will not back up a foreigner, or the gov’t, or in the instance you cited, the police won’t help you. If there were recourse I’m certain more foreigners would pursue it. But contract are like toilet paper in Korea and you work at the whim of your employer.
Look at the difficulties foreign migrant workers have in Korea:
http://web.amnesty.org/wire/August2006/Korea
Here, the Korean gov’t is the direct cause of their distress–they can’t simply “man up.”
Indeed, i’d love to see Seth Gecko “man up” and take any Korean with money & influence to court / prosecution for their blatant wrongdoing, and then report back to us here how that went for him. Odds are that he’d gain a touch of humility and realism…
I didn’t take any of my cheating sacks of crap to court or the labor board, and I was never assaulted enough to bother with the police.
However, whatever the disadvantages in Korean court and how the police and others might not want to listen to you, it is not a “hopeless” deadend.
The teacher who this post is about obviously won in court on his labor dispute and even got assets frozen. How it will turn out with the boss refusing to pay is yet to be seen - but that same things happens in the US and I’d assume elsewhere.
But - more than that — I know of a couple of cases, and have read about a couple of cases, where going to the local labor board and having them contact the employer was enough to shake loose withheld money or release letters and so on.
And I think that is still good advice - though I’ve been out of the industry for 6 years now — if you have problems - go to the labor board and start the process. Sometimes that is enough.
“Indeed, i’d love to see Seth Gecko “man up” and take any Korean with money & influence to court / prosecution for their blatant wrongdoing, and then report back to us here how that went for him. Odds are that he’d gain a touch of humility and realism…”
If he can find a lawyer. A lawyer I know once told me that although it made him sick how hagwon owners treated their foreign teachers…he couldn’t do anything about it. He said he feared that people in our provincial town would stop consulting him if he helped a foreigner in a case against a Korean.
What a commtion here.
ZenKimchi is not even indicted. 휴~~~~
Yeah, it’s a little silly. What’s sillier are the people who think “We should call the New York Times. Once the International Media get ahold of such a juicy story, this will all go away.” Tell that to Lone Star, which really didn’t do anything wrong.
Here in this case, the defamation law is very clear. If indicted, Joe of ZenKimchi will be convicted and receive some sort of punishment — it’s inevitable because under Korean law he has in fact defamed someone. Even when — especially when — the story is completely true.
man, it’s not that anyone is a sissy, it’s that there is no recourse for anything that a Korean might do to you. sure you have rights, but there are for show when in reality your boss can screw you out of all your money and even your house and nobody really cares.
and it seems like you have spent those 6+ years in some kind of happyland bubble and had the luck of never being screwed over. pressing charges when assaulted leads to you being counter-sued and probably fired since your hogwan doesn’t want your mess or your public school can’t cope with the negative attention. in other words, it’s a waste of time. go home, lick your wounds and stay out of trouble.
you don’t get to “man-up” in this country. you don’t get to “beat them at their game” either. after being jilted by two hogwans and assaulted twice (and taking it to the police both times with a Korean friend), i took it all very personally and thought that of course i could have my day in court and get my compensation. a Korean pointed out that most Koreans in Korea don’t even get justice, so what was i expecting?
if you have money, are Korean, and a man, then you can expect something to happen. everyone else just gets to “man-up” and take it …
“The foreign English teachers in this country are sissies when it comes to any kind of follow-up/follow-through.”
man, it’s not that anyone is a sissy, it’s that there is no recourse for anything that a Korean might do to you. sure you have rights, but there are for show when in reality your boss can screw you out of all your money and even your house and nobody really cares.
“My estimate, after 6+ years here, is that 95% of foreigners don’t press charges when assaulted. Also I would say that 95% of the ripped-off foreigners don’t take their bosses to court.”
and it seems like you have spent those 6+ years in some kind of happyland bubble and had the luck of never being screwed over. pressing charges when assaulted leads to you being counter-sued and probably fired since your hogwan doesn’t want your mess or your public school can’t cope with the negative attention. in other words, it’s a waste of time. go home, lick your wounds and stay out of trouble.
“Man-up people! Check out that teacher blacklist, and if your name’s on it, SUE! Beat them at their game! Don’t just roll over and take it.
And if you’re assaulted here (and it happens ALOT), GO TO THE POLICE ASAP WITH A KOREAN FRIEND. I know so many people here that have been ganged-up on, and they don’t do a thing about it.”
you don’t get to “man-up” in this country. you don’t get to “beat them at their game” either. after being jilted by two hogwans and assaulted twice (and taking it to the police both times with a Korean friend), i took it all very personally and thought that of course i could have my day in court and get my compensation. a Korean pointed out that most Koreans in Korea don’t even get justice, so what was i expecting?
if you have money, are Korean, and a man, then you can expect something to happen. everyone else just gets to “man-up” and take it …
My sister, who has a Canadian college degree, was fortunate enough to work for a hagwon owner who was straightfoward when it came to employer - employee matters.
Unfortunately, as mentioned above, not all hagwon owners follow the rules, and from the behavior of the above hagwon owner in question, she will most probably ask for a huge compensation in return for not sending Joe to prison, which will negate the 8 million won that he is supposed to receive from the woman in question. In which case, the woman would have gotten her victory and made a small profit at the same time.
> usinkorea
> if you have problems - go to the labor board
> and start the process. Sometimes that is enough.
Yup, sometimes it is. A respected and supposedly respectable university once tried to deny me my Severance Pay, saying “we don’t do that system, we have another way; We don’t pay that to any of the foreign professors.” I visited the city’s labor office, found an officer i could communicate with, he made one 60-second phone call to the relevant university office, and it was resolved; the money was in my bank account 24 hours later. I would guess that the U officials were just in the habit of diverting the foreigner’s severance-pays into their own pockets…
He’s not going to go to prison in any case. That would be a really exceptional, and shocking, outcome to this type of dispute. But yes, the use of the criminal complaint of defamation is part of a tactic to “offset” what she owes him under the civil judgment.
There was a Times article which was pretty truthful on this. It stated that if you have a situation where you are being unfairly treated by a hogwan you of course have to lodge a complaint, officially. The place of the hearing is not easy to get to and the hogwan owner can blow off three hearings without penalty. If they want to be uncooperative, it’s perfectly okay with the labor board.
I don’t care what the law says, in this particular case the only defamation was on the part of the hogwan owner. They should rename this particular statute because defamation is the wrong term. Maybe name it the “sucking up to the haves against the have-nots” law.
We can’t speak the truth? In other countries this is an infringement of freedom of speech, really this time. This is a democracy?
And they scratch their heads in wonder over the broadening divide between the rich and poor here. Why is it happening?
I don’t know Mr. Wizard. You tell me.
Indeed, the issue here shouldn’t be about whether Joe will win or lose the case, indeed, he’s going to lose the case if prosecuted through to the end. The real issue is whether “foreigners” should stand up for their rights. It’s really difficult for a foreigner to get anything administrative or legal done in Korea. Even when you look Korean, you speak good Korean, have Korean parents, if your passport says something other than Republic of Korea on it, then everyone in the system, from the local government office right up to the top will start treating you as if you’re the enemy (maybe a bit exaggerated, but you get the gist). I think the worst hit are the children born in Korea of non-Korean parents, if they’re not Korean, who are they?
This is a great shame, and the fact that it happened to someone who actually loves Korea, something clearly evident from his blog and the feature on him in the New York Times, makes it all the worse. I hope that some kind of understanding can be arrived at on the part of the police.
“Even when you look Korean, you speak good Korean, have Korean parents, if your passport says something other than Republic of Korea on it, then everyone in the system, from the local government office right up to the top will start treating you as if you’re the enemy (maybe a bit exaggerated, but you get the gist). “
Wait a minute. Let’s remember that foreign Joe had actually won an $8 million won judgment against the Korean woman in a Korean court prior to her filing a criminal complaint.
Yes, right. We have to keep in mind here that the source of Joe’s new crisis is that Joe made a big mistake, naming the Hakwan and its owner in his blog-posts complaining about the case. He could’ve ranted about it all he wanted if he hadn’t included the names… He shouldda known that, or checked up on it before posting, or posted anonymously on another forum — or just kept his tragic dispute off the public internet like most people do. Nobody is compelled to blog. There is “Freedom of Speech” here, but it has certain limitations…
Sonagi, please don’t use the dollar sign to denote won-based amounts. It confuses things quite a bit, especially since one dollar is worth almost 1000 units of Korean won. Prefix won-denominated amounts with “W” or “KRW”.
W8,000,000 is about US$8650 — nothing to sniff at, but not enough to make it worthwhile to hire lawyers. And a thousand times smaller than an eight million dollar judgment.
The Korean legal system will never — well, almost never — support the award of such a large amounts to an individual plaintiff, especially not in a wage-dispute case. Damages here are pretty strictly limited to the out-of-pocket cost suffered by the plaintiff, and no punitives are ever awarded.
Which is why so many file *criminal* suits against people instead of civil suits, simply because a criminal suit has more teeth, i.e., threat of police action or jail, which can be used to make people pay money to kill the suit, whereas a civil suit takes too much time and is of little worth to pursue. Such examples are why the legal system here needs real improvement. This does not encourage people to use the system, rather it encourages cheating or playing the system.
The defendant in this instance might have done better to hire some local etiquette scholar to teach the woman a lesson or two.
Brendon Carr wrote:
“Sonagi, please don’t use the dollar sign to denote won-based amounts. It confuses things quite a bit, especially since one dollar is worth almost 1000 units of Korean won. Prefix won-denominated amounts with “W” or “KRW”.”
Oops. That was just a slip-up. As I used to live in Korea, I know that 8 million won is a little more than $8,000.
We know you know. But I don’t want some FOB English teacher getting the wrong idea. Far too many of those already call me, thinking there is some jackpot in it for them because their employer is beastly. Or at least some way that I or some lawyer in my office should be able to work on their matter for a (small) slice of the expected proceeds instead of cold, hard cash. Our landlord, the electric company, and my kids’ school — they all want cash, you see, but the English teacher wants me to work for free and to con a colleague into working for free.
“So if an employer rips you off and you win against them in court, writing the truth about what the employer did is illegal?”
Yeah, ya know, common sense, depends how ya do it.
Looks like this person crossed a legal line.
Yes, but apparently it’s alright that she slandered him during a few phone calls to his next employer.
Many of you folks have no problem with this but are bent over some rich ancestors of Japanese collaborators because they got a little jack yanked from their gravy train?
Look, I understand the precedents. But please, someone at least inform the legal brain-trust here that UNJUST harm only occurs when the information leaked is BS.
How many cans of spam did it take to get these laws in the books?
Stop thinking in terms of “injustice” and start thinking in terms of remedies. Yes, it’s unjust. But what remedy do we seek? Civil ones stink, especially if you’re hiring counsel to try to get them for you.
Is what the person wrote online about the person who claims defamation still available?
What’s unjust?
Brendon,
Is there an English-language book that explains legal problems commonly encountered by individual foreign nationals in Korea? If not, have you thought about writing one? You often remark about how lawyers like to get paid yet generously provide practical information about the Korean legal system. It appears that Joe and many other foreigners run into trouble because they are unaware of the Korean legal system.
PS, Brendon, maybe you could team up with the very informative Leefr.
Unjust adj. Not just or fair. Hey, it may be a neo-logism, but it’s in there.
One of the highlights of its use was by Steve Martin to Rick Moranis in “My Blue Heaven”.
If the parents and politicians did more than pay lip service to their childrens education the remedies would be forthcoming.
They say they don’t want to mess with this multi-billion won monster hogwan industry yet it has become monstrous. If they made it less of a mine field for sincere, educated teachers then it would be better able to attract them. The quality of the pool would go up and they could be more selective with who they hire.
If I am disallowed from citing specific instances of managerial abuse then all my arguments lack teeth. I have no recourse. The remedies will have to come from people with the power and the desire to promote change.
The Korean Foreign Teachers’ Recruiting Association is so wrong it’s not even funny.
Besides the defamatory aspect of the statements about the teachers, the relevant article of the Labor Standards Act is Art. 39, which forbids blacklisting:
“No person shall prepare and use secret signs or lists, or have communications, for the purpose of interfering with employment of a worker.”
Violations of Art. 39 shall be punished by a term of imprisonment for up to five years, or a fine of up to W30 million. There are other, Korean-admitted, lawyers posting comments to the Marmot’s Hole. For example, I’m pretty sure that “Winnie” and “~*” are lawyers. If the so-called English-teacher community were able to organize itself, a group of complainants could chip in some small amount — say, W300,000 — apiece to hire one of these lawyers to prepare and file a criminal complaint. A group of thirty-five such plaintiffs could get themselves a lawyer.
However, the persons “defamed” on the KFTRA website are in all likelihood just as irresponsible as described — which means they can scarcely organize a beer run. Without the direct complaint by the parties defamed, nothing can or will be done. And, to be frank, I personally don’t like speech-chilling litigation or threats of litigation; in a better legal system, I don’t think anything should be done.
yeah, like Mr. Carr said, some of those people have tags like
” Lied about being married. Lied about having 3 kids. Due to that condition, one of his lovers chose abortion.”
I mean, Korean men do that too, and don’t get black listed per say, but the native bully with the citizenship always kinds of gives a hard time to foreigners. Not that I’m saying it’s right. It’s wrong, still.
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American/Koran Legal Relations…
Or abusing the juducial system for revenge and profit. Two examples
In Washington DC the Korean owners of a Dry Cleaners are being taken to the legal cleaners by judge who claims they lost his trousers and therefore failed the “Service Guarranteed….
Blogger could go on trial for libel in South Korea…
The South Korean justice system is a mess. 500 people were killed and the people responsible got less than ten years in prison. This blogger could be in for hell, I just have no way of helping and don’t have any advise….
[...] means fully democratized even in ”soft” areas like freedom of expression yet (see here too for a notorious recent libel case). Overall, it seems to have moved little beyond [...]