Jun Ji-hye, a reporter at the finance desk of The Korea Times, focuses primarily on economic policy and government agencies, mainly covering the Ministry of Finance and Economy, the Ministry of Budget and Planning, the National Tax Service and the Korea Customs Service. She previously covered financial authorities, including the Financial Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service, and earlier worked on the political, city and business desks, reporting on a wide range of issues.
Body of male rights activist discovered
By Jun Ji-hye
Police said Monday that they found a body of Sung Jae-gi, 46, a male rights activist who jumped off a bridge into the Han River on Friday.
Investigators said the corpse was discovered under the southern part of Seogang Bridge connecting Yeouido to northern Seoul. They said that Sung was barefooted, but that his white shirt and dark gray pants were the same as what he was wearing when jumping into the river.
Seogang Bridge is next to Mapo Bridge where Sung, head of a male rights advocacy group, Man of Korea, jumped from, asking the public to lend the group 100 million won ($90,900) to pay off its debts.
A day before making what was apparently intended to be a mock suicide attempt, he posted a message on his Twitter account, forewarning that he planned to jump from one of the 24 bridges on the Han River.
The incident stirred a huge debate over aiding and abetting suicide.
Police questioned two of Sung’s colleagues, who were at the scene and took pictures of him jumping, about whether they abetted his attempted suicide which appears to have been successful.
The two insisted that he had no intention of killing himself and just wanted to draw public attention to boost men’s rights and raise funds for his group.