Bahk Eun-ji has been with The Korea Times since 2012, building a career across multiple desks. She began at the Business Desk, where she conducted in-depth interviews with key figures in Korea's corporate world. Later, she moved to the Politics & City Desk, focusing on education policy and social affairs. She later served as team leader of the digital content team, leading curation efforts on the newspaper’s homepage and reshaping print stories for social media audiences to enhance digital reach. Now back on the Politics Desk, she covers the National Assembly and the Ministry of National Defense, with a renewed focus on political developments.
Gyeonggi cancels hiring of would-be civil servant over harassment allegations
A screen capture of posts on the online community Ilbe Storage, in which a man shows he has passed the Gyeonggi Province civil service exam. Korea Times file
By Bahk Eun-ji
By Bahk Eun-ji
Gyeonggi Provincial Government said Wednesday that it has decided not to hire a person who passed the civil service exam for the local administration after discovering his online posts suggesting sex crimes and abusive language directed at women and the disabled.
The provincial government conducted an investigation after an online petition was filed on the Cheong Wa Dae website, Dec. 30, calling for the man's qualification to work as a public servant for Gyeonggi Province to be cancelled.
The petitioner said the man posted photos showing he had passed the province's civil service exam on Ilbe Storage, an online community infamous for misogynic and abusive posts by its users, and found he had previously posted photos of women and the disabled, taken secretly, mocking them with abusive words.
“He also wrote he bought sex from underage girls, and posted photos of him having sex on at least five occasions with different girls each time as if he was showing off his behavior,” the petitioner wrote.
As of Wednesday, the petition had attracted more than 100,000 signatures.
In response, the provincial government formed a personnel affairs committee to review his qualifications. It allowed the man to attend the committee meeting to make statements in order to guarantee his right to defend himself.
He reportedly denied all the allegations, saying he was only bluffing on the community.
But the committee did not accept his claim. “He greatly damaged the dignity of the office as a would-be civil servant by posting a number of photos and malicious comments against women and disabled people on the internet community where anyone could see them,” the committee said.
“We judged that he was not qualified to serve the citizens of the province as a public relations official,” it added.
Separately from the hiring cancellation, the provincial government requested the police to investigate the allegations that he bought sex from minors.