Petition calls for 'execution' of YouTuber embroiled in sex abuse probe

By Grace Lee

A petition calling for the public execution of famous YouTuber Yang Ye-won has been removed from the Cheong Wa Dae website.

Yang made a teary accusation in a YouTube video in May that a photography studio owner and a group of men had sexually harassed her in 2015. She said she had been locked in a studio after being tricked into a modeling job and that 20 men had harassed her.

The studio owner threw himself into a river on Monday in an apparent suicide, police said. They said they found a note in the man's car claiming he was being wrongly accused of the crime.

The petition said: “The studio owner committed suicide because of Yang Ye-won. Even singer and actor Suzy was deceived by Yang and her image was destroyed. I request that Yang be publicly executed in front of the statue of Admiral Yi Sun-sin.”

The petition was eventually removed, but there are others calling for a thorough investigation and punishment of Yang.

One petition stated that Yang disappeared from public view after KakaoTalk conversations between her and the studio owner were made public and that she started deleting some videos on YouTube. Those chats reveal that she had asked several times for reshoots after the initial shoot.

Yang has been branded a “murderer” and a “liar” in a flood of hate comments posted about her YouTube video. One post said the law is unfair in the way it investigates such accusations and called for changes.

There are also countless hate comments on other videos on the YouTube account “Beagle Couple,” run by Yang and her boyfriend Lee Dong-min.