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| Miniature figures of women who were forced to provide sex by the Japanese government during World War II. Korea Times file. |
By Jung Hae-myoung
A professor at Sunchon National University has been sentenced to a six-month jail term for his offensive remarks about former sex slaves during a lecture, the Gwangju District Office said, Monday.
He was put behind bars from the courtroom right after the ruling.
The professor, surnamed Song, insulted the women in front of 14 students during his lecture on April 2017 by saying, "Those women followed the Japanese soldiers because they were trying to flirt with them."
His remarks created a stir, causing a civic group supportive of the former sex slaves to file a complaint with the prosecution against Song for defamation.
"The professor has publicly slandered the elderly women who were forced to become sex slaves during the Japanese colonial era," the court said. "He also tried to escape his responsibility as an educator."
Song protested the court's decision and appealed to the Gwangju High Court right after the ruling.
The university expelled the professor over his remarks in October last year. Song asked the Appeal Commission for Educators to nullify the expulsion, but the request was declined in January.
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