Prisoner with 'buttocks touching' charge draws street supporters
By Ko Dong-hwan
This closed circuit television footage shows the encounter inside a restaurant in Daejeon between the jailed man and his alleged victim in November 2017, after which the woman accused the man of grabbing her buttocks.
Sympathizers plan to stage a street protest against the jailing of a husband for six months for touching a woman's buttocks in a restaurant, and after his wife claimed his innocence in a bitter online petition.
“My Life for Happy,” an online community on South Korean portal site Naver set up to support the man two days after he was jailed on Sept. 6, said Saturday the protest was set Oct. 27. The community had drawn more than 3,000 members as of Monday, which the site's staff deemed large enough to stage a protest.
The venue has not been decided but staff said they had visited Seoul City Hall square and the Supreme Court as possible venues.
The community urged its visitors not to leave any gender-biased post as the site, supporting the jailed man who claims had been misunderstood by his female accuser of touching her buttocks at a Daejeon restaurant in November 2017, was weary of gender clashes. It said that when it held an interview for recruiting operators of the planned protest the vetting process was particularly stringent to prevent “possible infiltration of members from WOMAD,” an online community centered on male hatred.
Releasing the planned date of the protest, the community expressed concern that “feminism's very definition may be abused by a certain group to enforce others to improve women's rights.”
It urged people “not to leave any post about feminism” because this could cause “a gender clash by being entrapped inside an ill-motivated frame.”
The protest was first proposed on Sept. 8 by one of the community's operators, an anonymous male, 23, who described himself as of “immature age” but “madly enraged” at how the man got imprisoned.
He said the only solution for those wrongfully accused by the country's authorities are “not more violence or mirroring crimes, but happiness for everyone.”
The issue surfaced on Sept. 6 when a woman's petition on online community “Bobaedream” about her husband appeared on the presidential petition site.
The petition, seeking supporters to demand that her husband be freed, attracted more than 224,000 anonymous votes in three days on the Cheong Wa Dae site, surpassing the 200,000 cap and obligating the presidential office to ma an official response.
The wife also posted on Bobaedream
showing the scene where the man allegedly grabbed the buttocks of a woman who accused and sued him.
The footage shows the defendant standing among a crowd in suits and the plaintiff walking toward the man. As the woman nears, the man turns back and walks past her. The critical moment, however, is partially blocked by a shoe cabinet, making it impossible to see whether he grabbed her buttocks. The video further shows the woman immediately catching up with the man apparently to accuse him.
“I have never seen my husband sobbing so bitterly in our 10-year marriage,” the wife said on the petition site, adding that her husband was heart-broken at the court decision.
She said her husband had attended several court hearings until September without telling her. The plaintiff demanded the defendant pay 10 million won for settlement but he refused, believing the court would acquit him.