By Kim Rahn
Cartoonists’ groups are protesting the government’s plan to designate 23 Internet cartoons as inappropriate for young people, demanding the state censorship body drop the move. They said it undermines freedom of expression.
On the street in front of the state Internet monitoring body in Seoul on Monday morning, some 70 cartoonists held placards in a rally against the Korea Communications Standards Commission’s announcement that it is considering putting “harmful to youth” labels on 23 “webtoons,” or online cartoons.
The commission has strengthened monitoring of online cartoons out of concern that some “violent” webtoons promoted violence and bullying at schools.
“We cartoonists criticize the commission’s action that infringes on our freedom of creation. We demand it scrap the rating plan and apologize to us and cartoon fans,” the groups said.
The participating groups are the Korea Cartoonists’ Association, the Cartoon and Animation Society in Korea, the Corea Cartoon Art Association, Cartoon Boomer and the Korea Comic Writers Association.
In early February, the commission said it would review whether to designate 23 webtoons as “harmful to youth” _ five distributed via Daum, 13 via Naver, two via Paran and three via Yahoo.
“We confirmed those cartoons depicted cruel killing scenes which may have a negative influence on youngsters. We asked the cartoonists to present their opinions before we finally apply the rating,” a commission official said.
The final decision will be made this month. If designated, only adults can watch them after checking the identification, and they are banned from any publicity activities.
The commission said reviewing webtoons’ violence is necessary because young people can easily access online content.
But cartoonists say the review on the 23 cartoons is unacceptable because their main stories are not about violence and many of them have been recognized for their high quality. Among the webtoons, “The 5ive Hearts” and “Salinja nangam” received awards from the Korea Creative Content Agency under the culture ministry last year, while “Oksu Station Ghost” has garnered international popularity.
The cartoonists also noted 15 among the 23 were already rated 19 and over and it is hard to understand why they are harmful to youths while young people are not allowed to watch them.
“This is the sad reality of cartoons _ cartoons are praised and highlighted as a new cultural growth engine on the one hand, while they are the most frequently criticized contents for ‘harmfulness’ on the other,” cartoonist Yoon Tae-ho, head of the groups’ emergency committee, said.
“The government hasn’t taken much action on violence in other cultural genres, but has attacked cartoons only. With such repetitive attacks, we are losing our freedom to create,” he said.
Their sharp reaction also came out of concern over a possible crackdown on cartoons similar to the one in 1997. At that time, popular cartoonist Lee Hyun-se’s “Heaven’s Myth” was criticized for lewdness and he was fined for violating the youth protection law. But he was cleared of the charge in an appellate court and the Constitutional Court also ruled the law unconstitutional because clauses on “bad cartoons” were ambiguous.
“We experienced an exhausting protest at that time and the cartoon industry shrunk. But the commission is echoing the situation,” Yoon said.
Those cartoonists pledged to take a legal action if the 23 webtoons are ultimately categorized as “harmful to youth.”