3rd appeals trial begins for former K-pop star Steve Yoo over visa denial

Singer Steve Yoo, also known as Yoo Seung-jun / Korea Times file

The third appeals trial over a visa denial for singer Steve Yoo, better known in Korea as Yoo Seung-jun, against the Korean Consulate General in Los Angeles opened Friday, with a ruling scheduled for Sept. 4.

The Seoul High Court held the first hearing to review the visa denial for the singer.

Consulate representatives said the requested overseas Korean visa — known as an F-4 — grants privileges nearly identical to citizenship. They called Yoo an "icon of draft evasion" in Korean society and questioned granting such benefits to someone who renounced his citizenship to avoid conscription.

Yoo's lawyers said the government is ignoring the rule of law to appease public sentiment. They said officials have repeated the same arguments for 10 years without addressing previous Supreme Court rulings in Yoo's favor.

Yoo debuted in Korea in 1997 and publicly promised to fulfill his mandatory military service. However, he left the country in January 2002 for an overseas performance and acquired U.S. citizenship, dodging the draft. As domestic criticism mounted, the Ministry of Justice banned his entry, ruling he posed a threat to national interests and public safety.

He later applied for an F-4 visa but was rejected. He filed lawsuits to overturn the denial and won twice at the Supreme Court. The government maintained its entry ban, saying the top court only addressed procedural flaws in the denial process and did not mandate the actual issuance of a visa.

Last August, the first trial court ruled in Yoo's favor, finding that the disadvantages he suffered were disproportionately severe compared with the public interest served. However, the court also made it clear that his decision to acquire U.S. citizenship shortly before his scheduled military enlistment amounted to draft evasion, emphasizing that its ruling should not be interpreted as justifying his past actions.

The Ministry of Justice recently announced its intention to establish a legal basis for restricting the entry of individuals who evade mandatory military service.

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.