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Support runs hot for star in 'revenge porn' case
Koo-Ha-ra visits Gangnam Police Station for questioning for allegedly injuring her then boyfriend. Korea Times file
By Ko Dong-hwan
By Ko Dong-hwan
Koo's ex-boyfriend allegedly filmed them having sex and threatened to make the video public. Korea Times file
After former KARA member Koo Ha-ra's ex-boyfriend threatened to leak a sex video of them, a petition on the South Korean presidential website has been inundated with visitors calling for revenge porn leakers to be dealt with more harshly.
As of Monday morning, more than 214,000 people had signed the petition. Petitions on the Cheong Wa Dae site rarely attract more than 200,000 signatures in such a short period. The figure is the minimum required within a month to obligate the presidential office to respond.
The petitioner lamented that nobody in Korea had been jailed for leaking revenge porn, whereas the victims sometimes killed themselves after being blamed for their “indiscretion.” The netizen said blaming the victim was “a sickening, obnoxious secondary harassment.”
“I demand Choi (the surname of Koo's ex-boyfriend) be held as a demonstration of the government's zero-tolerance on those filming revenge porn, storing it and using it as a tool of threat,” said the netizen.
The petitioner said there was “no more room for negotiation” with Korean society, and called for heavy imprisonment for people who filmed revenge porn, even if they then deleted it.
Choi first sued the K-pop star in September for injuring him after he suggested at her home in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, that they split. He released photos to prove his argument.
Koo then sued him for forcing her to agree to filming them having sex and then threatening her with the video. She also said he smashed items at her house on the day he suggested they split.
Choi admitted the video existed, but said Koo had first suggested filming the video. He said in a statement that he posted the video on KakaoTalk, Korea's most-used text messaging app, to “return the video to her” and said in a recent interview he was willing to strike a deal.
Koo did not respond to Choi's offer, saying she wanted police to get to the truth of the matter. Speaking through law firm Sejong, the star said Choi's interview was merely an attempt to dilute the revenge porn issue and that the interview was “a second attack” on her.
Koo debuted with KARA in 2008. After the group disbanded in 2016, she switched to acting.