The blogger “Minerva” was ruled not to have maliciously spread false information on economic matters. The South Korean government had tried to convict him of damaging the public’s faith in the government. –DB
The New York Times
April 21, 2009
By Choe Sang-Hun
SEOUL, South Korea — A blogger who criticized and angered the South Korean government but commanded a huge following online was freed from jail on Monday, after a court acquitted him of charges of maliciously spreading false information on the Internet.
The arrest of the blogger, Park Dae-sung, in January and his trial on charges of spreading false data in public with harmful intent, a crime punishable by as many as five years in prison, prompted debate over how much freedom of expression should be tolerated in cyberspace in this extensively wired country.
Mr. Park, an unemployed 31-year-old who wrote about economic matters, gained an almost prophetlike status among many South Koreans after he correctly predicted the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the crash of the South Korean currency and the effects of the American subprime mortgage crisis on South Korea.
In some of the hundreds of online commentaries he posted under his pen name, Minerva, Mr. Park wrote scathing attacks on the South Korean government’s response to the global financial crisis, some of which contained factual errors. The government accused him of undermining the financial markets.
In acquitting Mr. Park, Yoo Young-hyeon, a judge at the Seoul Central District Court, ruled Monday that there was no proof that Mr. Park “had the intention to undermine public interest.”
Judge Yoo said it was also difficult to believe that Mr. Park knew that some of his statements were false when he wrote them.
In July and December, Mr. Park wrote that the government had banned financial firms and major corporations from buying dollars in an effort to arrest the fall of the South Korean currency, the won — a statement the court said on Monday had been false but not criminal.
Prosecutors had demanded an 18-month sentence for Mr. Park, accusing him of “blatantly stoking fears among the people” in an economic crisis. Quoting from his writing, they accused Mr. Park, who often used satire, of advising people to hoard daily necessities in anticipation of runaway inflation and to “send children to orphanages.”
Mr. Park, in a statement before the judge last Tuesday, said, “South Korea may be the only country in the world where a man is tried because he criticized the government’s foreign currency policies.”
Prosecutors have a week to appeal the verdict.
South Korean political parties have squabbled over Mr. Park’s case. President Lee Myung-bak’s governing Grand National Party has sought to regulate the country’s online forums, prompting opposition parties to accuse the government of trying to silence its critics. The Democratic Party, the main opposition, on Monday called Mr. Park’s trial “an international embarrassment.”
The government has denied wanting to suppress online freedom of expression, but it has long voiced concern about the influence of Internet rumors. Officials blamed online demagogues in part for huge protests last summer against American beef imports that paralyzed the government for weeks.
Before his identity was exposed, Mr. Park, as Minerva, had cultivated an aura of mystery, describing himself at times as an old farmer or as a former Wall Street financial expert. After his arrest, many were surprised to learn that he was an unemployed graduate of a two-year community college who spent much of his time at home, scouring the Internet and reading mail-order books on finance.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company