By Lee Kyung-min
The arrest of Park Chun-bong, a Korean-Chinese murder suspect, is quickly eroding public sentiment toward Chinese people of Korean ethnicity.
Some experts are raising concerns that innocent Korean Chinese people might be disadvantaged ― and could be targeted in crimes ― by Koreans with a bias.
Police arrested Park, 56, on Sunday on suspicion of killing his live-in girlfriend and discarding her body parts after dismembering her. They discovered four plastic bags containing body parts of the girlfriend, identified as 48-year-old Kim, a Korean Chinese woman, near his house.
Park initially told investigators that he killed her accidentally during an argument by smashing her head into the wall. However, forensic scientists said Sunday an initial inspection showed that strangulation was the cause of death.
Upon the news report, Internet boards were filled with posts sweepingly degrading Korean-Chinese and foreign workers residing in Gyeonggi.
“Do you know why so many violent crimes involving severing body parts, or serial killings, happen in Gyeonggi Province, especially in Suwon, Hwaseong, and Ansan?” asked an ID user junn****.
“Those are where all the factories are, which means many foreigners with low-paying blue-collar jobs are living there. It should be designated as criminally-vulnerable area, and security there should be tightened accordingly,” he wrote.
Demanding for harsher punishment for the aggressors, he even cast doubt on the “multi-culturalism,” a policy promoted by the government supporting fair treatment of all people with various ethnic backgrounds living here.
“They do not deserve the same right as the rest of the Koreans. They are more likely to commit crime because they are under constant financial difficulty,” wrote junn****.
In light of such negative reaction, Korean-Chinese community as a whole suffers the consequence.
A Korean-Chinese wrote, in response, “What happened in Suwon was horrible, and it is so, not because he is a Korean-Chinese, but because he killed a person. Following this, I fear Koreans would lump us all into criminals as a whole.”
The community’s worry aside, for the past two weeks, a repetitive media reports spotlighted the case in connection with a gruesome murder two years ago, committed by another Korean-Chinese, Oh Won-choon, who he kidnapped and killed a woman and cut the bodies into more than 300 pieces.
Amid growing safety concern of the public, however, experts cautioned against such sweeping generalization, saying such misguided social prejudice ultimately drives social unrest, and causes more violence.
Kim Hae-sung, an official from civic group, Global Sharing of Love, said the recent case should be treated as an isolated incident, and should not be used as grounds for ethnic-based discrimination and hatred.
Lee Ho-hyeong, a minister of Korean-Chinese church, also cautioned against such groundswell sentiment against Korean-Chinese.
“Following ‘Suwon torso’ incident, all Korean-Chinese are increasingly worried that racially motivated hatred would pick up steam. Having low-paying jobs, they are already suffering from economic strain as it is. Further social stigma would only make their lives miserable. I hope their condition improves, not deteriorates,” Lee said.