By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter
The act of stalking, referring to the obsessive following, observing, or contacting of another person, will be punishable as a criminal offense, police said Monday.
Those who follow others to see where they live or what they do on a daily basis will be categorized as stalkers, the National Policy Agency (NPA) said. Also, people seeking and obtaining someone's personal information in order to contact him or her will be regarded as stalkers.
Looking for another person's data via a computers and other outlets containing the person's private information without his or her consent could be included, it said. Offenders will be fined up to 100,000 won.
Stalking has been claimed to be one of the most threatening acts taking place in recent years. From celebrities such as actress Cho Yeo-jeong to ordinary people such as nurses or teachers, some people, mostly women, felt threatened by someone sending them messages or following them.
``Such acts were not considered offenses here since they were neither violence nor threatening. But sending constant emails or letters will be considered stalking to keep up with increasing calls for tougher countermeasures,'' an NPA official said.
The effects of stalking are wide and include guilt, shame or embarrassment, shock, confusion and depression. Victims also have difficulty sleeping, sexual dysfunction, digestion problems, shortness of breath and many other physical effects, experts say.
However, since the standard for stalking was unclear and victims were not able to prove the harm caused, punishing offenders was difficult.
In other developed countries, stalking was defined as crime after several people lost their lives due to it. In the U.S., California introduced anti-stalking legislation in 1990 due to several high profile cases such as the 1982 attempted murder of actress Theresa Saldana, the 1989 murder of actress Rebecca Schaeffer and five Orange County stalking murders in 1989.