Talk show host gets suspended sentence over lecture

A local court on Monday sentenced a liberal activist to six months in prison for supporting an anti-government organization in a lecture.

Still, the Seoul Central District Court suspended the sentence for Hwang Sun for two years, meaning that she will not have to serve prison time if she stays out of trouble during that period.

The court said she had intent to positively respond and join an anti-government organization by holding a lecture in 2010.

She was indicted last year on charges of praising North Korea on an Internet broadcast and making comments in favor of North Korea in the on-stage talk shows she hosted in 2014.

South Koreans are prohibited from supporting or praising the North in any way under the country's National Security Law. The 1950-53 Korean War ended with a cease-fire agreement, not a peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas technically at war.

The court, however, acquitted the 42-year-old of making flattering remarks about North Korea during the 2014 talk shows.

In the videos of the shows, Hwang and her Korean-American co-host Shin Eun-mi did not make direct, active and uncritical praise of the North, the court said.

"There is no evidence to say that the remarks they exchanged on North Korea's child-bearing environment, economic growth and anecdotes on the North's leaders are intentionally distorted or false, though they cannot be verified and could have been exaggerated," the court said.

It is hard to say that they posed a direct threat to the existence, security or free democracy of the country, it added.

In November, the same court dismissed a defamation suit filed by Hwang against President Park Geun-hye on charges of accusing her shows of being pro-North Korean at a meeting with senior secretaries.

Her Korean-American co-host Shin was deported in January last year because of similar allegations. She has been banned from entering South Korea for five years.

(Yonhap)