By Kim Rahn
Staff Reporter
Police began a search for Internet users for the posting of malicious comments and pictures feared to irritate Taliban militants and hinder the safe return of 23 kidnapped Korean citizens in Afghanistan.
They are considering taking legal action on the netizens, such as defamation charges.
The police also asked operators of Korean and foreign Web sites to remove writing or video content that would irritate the kidnappers.
Those writings hurt the captives' families, instigate anti-Christianity sentiment on the Web, and even support the kidnappers.
Some people have claimed on foreign Web sites that the abducted Koreans' activity in the strict Islamic country was not volunteer work but missionary work. Seoul officials advised netizens against making an issue of religion because the issue would worsen the situation.
An Internet user captured a picture from one of the abductees' personal Cyworld blog. In the photo, the kidnapped prayed in a Christian manner when she visited an Islamic Holy Land in Afghanistan in 2005.
The picture and her comments about her visit have been spreading on the Internet after being translated into English. Some other Internet users created video clips using the photo, added their own English comments that could anger Muslims, and posted them on the worldwide video site YouTube.
On DC Inside, the Korean equivalent of YouTube, a netizen posted the link of a Web site believed to be run by Taliban, and another user claimed he e-mailed the picture to Web master of the Taliban site.
Such photos and writings are creating public opinions unfavorable to the hostages. People put comments such as ``How come she profanes Islam at Islamic Holy Land,'' and ``They deserve any tragic results as they did wrong.''
Web site operators are trying to remove such comments and those video clips, but are having difficulty as they are spreading so fast.
Saemmul Community Church, where the abductees are parishioners, and the Korean Foundation for World Aid, a Christian charity group that arranges many Korean churches' volunteer works in nations such as Afghanistan, had to close their online guest boards due to surging malicious comments.