Court awards damages to South Korea President

Seoul, South Korea - A former government official who called South Korean President Moon Jae-in a pro-North ‘Communist’ was ordered to pay 10mn won (US$8,890) in damages, a court in Seoul ordered on Tuesday.

Former public prosecutor and conservative activist Koh YoungJu had accused Moon of planning to turn South Korea into ‘a red Communist country’ if he became president during a public forum in January 2013.

South Korea remains technically at war with the Communist North after the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice instead of a peace treaty. Moon sued Koh in 2015 for defamation, accusing him of ‘spreading groundless rumours’ and seeking 100mn won in damages.

In its judgement the Seoul Central District Court said the remarks had ‘tarnished the social reputation’ of Moon.

‘The plaintiff (Moon) is a public figure, but that does not mean that such a derogatory statement should be protected under freedom of speech, especially given the negative implications involved in the word ‘Communist’ in our country’, it said.

Many of the South’s left-leaning activists and politicians have been accused of being Communists sympathetic to the North by their political rivals. Moon was defeated by Park Geun-Hye, in the presidential election in 2012. But he won the next election held in 2017 after Park was impeached over a massive corruption scandal.