SEOUL — In the 27 years since democracy arrived here, South Korea has become home to rowdy election campaigns, a vibrant protest culture and dozens of daily newspapers traversing the full political spectrum. It’s a place where people don’t have to be asked twice for their opinions. 민주주의가 도래한 27년간, 남한은 소란스런 선거운동, 강렬한 데모문화, 모든 정치적 색깔을 망라하는 십여종의 일간지들의 중심이 되었다. 국민들의 의견을 두 번 다시 물어서는 안 되는 곳이 한국이다.
But now, analysts and journalists are expressing concern that a central tenet of democracy — a free press — is under threat. 그러나 이제 평론가들과 언론인들은 민주주의의 핵심교의(사항)인 자유로운 언론이 위협을 받고 있다는 우려를 드러내고 있다.
President Park Geun-hye’s administration has launched an aggressive crackdown on media outlets that run reports it considers unfavorable, leading to a raft of domestic defamation cases and one high-profile suit against a conservative Japanese journalist. 박근혜 대통령의 행정부는 다수의 명예훼손 사건들과 보수적인 일본 언론인에 대한 세간의 이목을 끄는 기소를 하는 등 현정부의 심기를 불편하게 만드는 언론보도에 대해 공격적인 탄압을 시작했다.
This is sparking even more unflattering comparisons for the president. 이는 대통령에 대한 호의적이지 않은(곱지 않은) 시선을 촉발시키고 있다.
“Park Geun-hye is taking a page from her dictator father’s playbook,” said Peter Beck, a Korea expert at the New Paradigm Institute in Seoul. "박근혜는 독재자 아버지의 공책에서 한 쪽을 떼어내 사용하고 있다."고 서울 뉴패러다임 연구소의 한국 전문가 피터 벡은 말한다.
Local and foreign reporters are being sued over stories unfavorable to President Park Geun-hye. (Ahn Young-joon/AP)
Park, who took office as South Korea’s first female president in February last year, is the daughter of Park Chung-hee, the Army general who seized power through a military coup and ruled South Korea for almost all of the 1960s and 1970s. That period was associated with astonishing economic growth but also with the suppression of civil liberties and political freedoms, including freedom of the press.작년 2월 한국 최초 여성 대통령 직무를 시작한 박은 군사쿠데타를 통해 권력을 잡아 60-70년대 한국을 통치했던 육군 소장 박정희의 딸이다. 그 기간 놀라운 경제발전을 이루었으나 언론의 자유와 더불어 시민의 자유와 정치의 자유는 억압을 당해야 했다.
That legacy is now being alluded to more frequently in South Korea, where numerous cases against journalists are currently going through the legal system. 그와 같은 유산이 언론인들에 대한 많은 기소가 사법체제에서 진행되고 있는 한국에 지금 빈번하게 은연중에 보여지고 있다.
Defamation is defined here as the intention to injure someone’s reputation, but an exception is made when the reports are in the public interest. This exception, though nebulous, has generally protected the press. No longer. 일반적으로 말해서 명예훼손은 누군가의 평판에 상처를 입히려는 의도라고 정의를 내리지만, 그것이 대중의 이익에 부합되는 언론보도는 예외로 간주된다. 이와 같은 예외는 비록 모호하더라도 언론을 보호해왔다. 그런데 더 이상 그렇지 않다.
Among the current cases, Park’s aides are suing the left-leaning Hankyoreh newspaper over a report suggesting that a photo opportunity with a girl at the site of the April ferry disaster was staged and another contending that the government ignored reports that the ferry was unsafe. 여러 개의 케이스들 가운데, 박 대통령의 측근들은 지난 4월 세월호 사고지역에서 한 소녀가 찍은 사진 한 장을 게재함으로써 배가 안전하지 않다는 사실을 정부가 무시했다고 주장한 보도기사를 낸 좌파 신문 한겨레를 고소하고 있다.
Presidential aides are also suing the Chosun Ilbo, South Korea’s largest newspaper, and the Sisa Journal over their reports that a presidential aide got involved in appointments of chairmen at Korea Telecom and KB Financial Group. 대통령의 측근들은 한국의 최대 일간지 조선일보와 시사저널을 고소한 상태다. 대통령의 한 측근이 KT 회장과 KB금융그룹의 회장 임명에 관여했다는 보도 때문이다.
Now the Segye Ilbo newspaper is being sued for last week quoting leaked documents and alleging that Chung Yoon-hoi, Park’s chief of staff while she was in parliament, tried to influence state affairs. Those allegations are still reverberating here, causing huge political headaches for the president. 이제 세계일보도 지난 주 고소당했다. 유출된 문건들과 박근혜가 의회시절 보좌관이었던 정윤회가 국정에 개입했다는 의혹을 전했기 때문이다. 이런 의혹들은 여전히 울려퍼지고 있으며, 대통령에게 커다란 정치적 두통을 안겨주고 있다.
A spokeswoman for the president, Yoo Myung-hee, said that the Segye Ilbo released classified government information “without even minimal efforts to verify the facts,” and that this had caused public confusion and had dealt a “severe blow” to the reputation of government organizations and senior officials. 대통령의 여대변인 유영희는 세계일보가 비밀에 붙여진 정부의 정보를 "사실 입증에 대한 최소한의 노력도 없이" 공개했으며, 이로써 대중의 혼란를 초래했으며 정부조직과 고위공직자에 대한 평판에 "심각한 타격"을 입혔다고 말한다.
“Freedom of the press and the people’s right to know have to be safeguarded,” she said. “Notwithstanding that, actions that unjustifiably harm the public interest, which includes the safeguarding of state secrets, and damage the reputation of individuals cannot be permitted. The implicit limits to freedom of the press should not be overstepped.” "언론의 자유와 국민의 알권리는 지켜져야 한다."고 그녀는 말한다." 그럼에도 불구하고 대중의 이익에 해를 끼치는 행위들과 국가의 비밀을 지키는 걸 포함하는 대중의 이익 그리고 개인의 명예를 손상하는 행위는 허용될 수 없다. 언론의 자유에 대한 무조건적 제한은 도가 지나쳐서는 안된다."
But the case that is making waves outside South Korea involves Tatsuya Kato, who was the Seoul bureau chief for Japan’s Sankei Shimbun until he was charged over a report he wrote in August. That story, which was based on a previous report in the Chosun Ilbo, questioned where Park was on the day in April that the Sewol ferry sank, costing 304 mostly teenaged lives. 한국 밖에서 풍파를 일으키고 있는 그 사건은 일본 산케이 신문의 서울 지국장이었던 탓수야 카토가 지난 8월 썼던 기사 때문에 기소되었던 일이 포함되어 있다. 그 기사는 조선일보에 소개된 내용을 근거로 하는데 304명 대부분이 10대인 희생자를 낸 세월호 침몰사고 발생한 날 박 대통령이 어디 있었는가에 대한 의문을 제기했다.
Kato recycled rumors that Park was away on a personal matter and could not be reached. 카토는 박 대통령이 개인적인 문제로 집무실에 없었고 연락이 닿지 않았다는 루머를 재활용했다.
The president’s office adamantly denies the rumors and three groups of her supporters — including one called “The people who love Dokdo,” referring to an island at the center of a territorial dispute between Japan and Korea — filed a defamation complaint against Kato.
The case is viewed as highly political, not least because of Sankei’s editorial positions. one of Japan’s most conservative papers, it maintains that the mainly Korean sex slaves used by Japanese soldiers during World War II were prostitutes. 이 사건은 굉장히 정치적인 것으로 보고 있는데, 산케이 신문의 편집자란 위치 때문이 아니다. 이 신문은 일본에서 가장 보수적인 신문들 가운데 하나로서, 일본이 2차세계대전 당시 성노리개로 썼던 조선여성들은 창녀들이었다는 관점을 주장하고 있다.
The Chosun Ilbo has not been sued for printing the original report. 조선일보는 최초의 기사를 내보낸 것에 대해 기소를 당하지 않았다.
But Kato has been banned since August from leaving Korea — his wife and three children have returned to Tokyo — and will go to trial Monday. His attorneys say the trial could take eight months, even before the inevitable appeal. If convicted, he faces seven years in jail or a fine of $45,000. 그러나 카토는 8월 한국을 떠나는 걸 금지당했고 월요일 재판을 받게 된다. 그의 아내와 3 자녀들은 토쿄로 돌아갔다. 그의 변호사들은 재판은 8개월 정도 걸릴 거라고 말한다. 만일 혐의가 인정된다면, 그는 7년형을 받게 되거나 45,000불의 벌금을 내게 된다.
After a pretrial hearing in November, Korean men crowded around Kato’s car as he tried to leave the court, yelling expletives at him and throwing eggs at his windows, according to a video posted on YouTube.
“This case shows what kind of leader Park Geun-hye is, what her character is,” Kato told The Washington Post in the Sankei’s bureau in Seoul. “It’s quite outstanding that this kind of administration could come to power given the current state of Korean democracy.”
Moon Jae-in, an opposition lawmaker who narrowly lost to Park in the 2012 presidential election, has accused her of using scare tactics to silence critics.
“I do not necessarily agree with the views of the Sankei Shimbun, but I do not think indicting an individual for publishing false facts is the right thing to do,” Moon said recently, adding that freedom of ｅxpression must be “guaranteed to the utmost.”
Park’s spokeswoman said she would not comment on a case that was going through the courts but referred to the prosecutor’s indictment, which said the Sankei story was fabricated and defamatory and cited unreliable information.
“The Korean government protects the freedom of the press to the fullest extent in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of Korea and the law,” Yoo said in an e-mailed statement. “All media organizations in Korea are afforded the enjoyment of such freedom of ｅxpression. However, this does not extend to a freedom to commit defamation through the publication of false information as fact.”
Lawyers say it will be extremely difficult for Kato or the other journalists to win their cases because it is up to the journalist concerned to prove the story true.
The prosecution will have a chilling effect on the press, said Brendon Carr, an American attorney practicing in Seoul.
That is exactly the effect that Park’s administration is hoping for, analysts said.
“The current South Korean administration is sending a message to the press not to write adverse reports about the government,” said Lee Cheol-hee, a political analyst at the private Doomoon Political Strategy Research Institute. “The current situation shows what a typically authoritarian government Park Geun-hye is leading,” he said. “Democracy has been retreating under this administration.”
But the media is not running scared. At least, not completely.
“What kind of shameless president,” the Hankyoreh wrote in an editoriallast week about the influence-peddling scandal, “gets angry at the newspapers instead of blaming herself for leaving her country in this abnormal state?”
Yoonjung Seo contributed to this report.