hankyoreh

Yesterday, prosecutors indicted five producers and writers from the MBC program “PD Notebook” for defamation and disruption of operations.

The investigative report in question was broadcast on April 29, 2008 and warned of the dangers of mad cow disease and urged the South Korean government to carefully consider its decision regarding relaxing sanitary regulations on U.S. beef imports. The episode aired criticism of government policy and represented an expression of opinion falling under constitutionally protected freedoms of press and speech, however, prosecutors are pursuing charges of defamation against the show’s producers. This is a clear case of media suppression with a total disregard for the Constitution. While all of society is of one voice in expressing concern about democracy’s regression, it appears the administration is once again blatantly pushing it backwards.

The public prosecutor’s office is likely aware that it is a stretch to investigate and indict producers of the PD Notebook. It has been said the investigation team that first took on the case cleared the producers of any suspicions. The chief prosecutor in charge protested the order to conduct the investigation and ultimately handed in his resignation over the matter. Still the public prosecutor’s office pressed the matter, switched out the entire investigative team that finally presented the exact opposite conclusion of the first team a few months later. It is clear that there is no other explanation for this outcome other than to say this is a politically motivated investigation meant to deal a blow to the popular spirit of the candlelight vigil demonstrations and to gain a measure of retribution. It is for this reason that prosecutors are being popularly criticized for being “investigators for hire.”

The prosecutors have presented exceedingly shoddy reasoning, especially first and foremost, using the idea that an investigative report critical of government policy defames the public official responsible for setting the policy. Criticizing and checking the government is the essential role of the press and a core press freedom. If the press is to perform this function, it is assumed that it should criticize policy carried out by public officials. If, as the prosecutors are claiming, reporting on problems in the negotiations regarding U.S. beef imports are “obviously nothing short of a criticism of the Agricultural Minister, whose office presided over the negotiations,” any critical reporting at all becomes impossible. Presenting this sort of fallacious logic is a form of violence. If this logic is applied, media critical of the administration are subject to investigation and prosecution at any time. It is plain as day that this will result in the curtailment of the press.

South Korea’s courts have been expressing the view that restrictions on press freedoms with regard to public officials and issues of public interest should be relaxed. They are also of the view that even a report for the public benefit that contains some degree of exaggeration or error is difficult to recognize as a violation of the law if the information is trustworthy enough for the reporters to believe in its truth. Yet prosecutors are taking a few errors in translation, editing issues, and misunderstandings about the issue as a reason to charge the producers PD Notebook as if they presented an entirely distorted report. Prosecutor’s determination to find fault has given rise to suspicions that the motivation behind the investigation is unrelated to the proof available that supports the criminal charges being pressed against the producers

In the Park Yeon-cha case, prosecutors disclosed personal information or excessive details about charges to the press and received heavy criticism over this. Instead of reflecting over these tactics, however, they went and engaged in the same kind of behavior for this case. However, in this situation, despite disclosure of personal e-mail contents and statements from one of the writers, which were referenced as “materials from which an intent to distort can be surmised,” prosecutors have been utterly unable to shed light on how such private ideas and personal correspondences might have actually affected the production of the program. The Korean Central Intelligence Agency, the predecessor to the National Intelligence Service, sought to use the National Security Law to punish the democratization movement and employed similar methods.

In addition, the prosecutors have been unable to show a direct causal relationship between the PD Notebook report and the damages claimed by importers of U.S. beef, which can be expected in a made-to-order contract investigation. Following this kind of behavior, it is questionable whether the public prosecutors’ office can even talk about pride as a judicial organization. It is clear that this indictment against PD Notebook is aiming to issue a warning that all reports critical of the government will be shut off at the source. This is what a dictatorship looks like, and must be brought to an immediate stop.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]