A Letter From Journalist Seong Sang-hoon, Arrested by the Police, Now Released, on Suppression of Free Speech, Growing China's Influence & More in South Korea - East Asia Research Center

2020-5-20, A letter from Seong Sang-hoon,  Global Defense News

May 20, 2020

Dear Dr. Tara O and Mr. Gordon Chang,

I am Sung Sang-Hoon of "Global Defense News" from Seoul, Korea.

Thank you for your interest in the human rights of both Koreas, especially in the oppression of freedom of the press currently happening here in the Republic of Korea (ROK). And also, I think the Korean police and the prosecution in charge of my case were astonished when they found out that my story of detention has gained global attention from American prominent scholars like you on your Twitter. I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to you for your efforts to make it publicized with the issue of the Moon Jae-in regime's suppression of the press, including my own.

In Amos of the Old Testament, God judges by fire the eight countries that called the righteous evil and oppressed the righteous. I am positive that our heavenly father will definitely judge on Moon Jae-in and his cabal and will surely pay both of you back for your righteous deeds with His favor. I pray that God's blessing and grace be full upon you and your family.

Below is a description of what I have been through so far, and please don't be surprised to see what's really going on in South Korea.

I was arrested in the morning by the police on a charge of the damnedest crime that I've ever heard. The name of my crime was "the criminal defamation of a Chinese decedent." Details are as follows:

It was around 10:00 a.m. on May 13, 2020 (last Wednesday) that the horrible incident happened to me. Four police officers from the cyber investigation unit of the Gyeonggi Southern Provincial Police Agency came to my house with an arrest warrant and arrested me.

Previously, I'd read news that a local doctor examined a sick Chinese man and recommended him to go to a public medical center in the city of Pyeongtaek for the COVID-19 test, making an assumption that his patient might be confirmed as one of the cases of the Coronavirus, based on the observation of him with very similar symptoms to the pneumonia originating from Wuhan, and all of a sudden, the Chinese man collapsed and died while standing in a line for the virus tests at a public medical center.

It began with my simple question, "Shouldn't this be regarded as a case of death due to the Wuhan virus?" on my YouTube channel while I was talking about the news of the Chinese man's death. Before long, a request for an investigation into me and my company, rather than the death case itself, was made by a certain higher office in the Pyeongtaek local government. I was charged with spreading false news even though they have never dug into the case or learned what happened for real.

Later a written demand of attendance to get investigated for it was sent to me. However, at that time it was amid the Coronavirus outbreak nationwide. Since I was not allowed to travel such a far distance like to Pyeongtaek, I had petitioned them to transfer my case to Seoul to the detectives in charge three times before. But the police never allowed me to, and even tracked down my whereabouts with an absurd arrest warrant.

It was unthinkable to ask the police to investigate any of the media's comments on any governmental policies or whatever it has done, until the Moon administration. Moreover, an active law in South Korea, which defines a news reporter who disapproves of public policies as a criminal has never been written. Usually, when news media carry false news against a public office, it comes to an end with a simple press release by the government agencies explaining how and why the report was wrong.

Since I arrived at the National Police Agency, both of my hands had been handcuffed for long. Whenever I went to the restroom, a police officer was looking at me from behind, and only one of my hands was let go of. They kept me handcuffed, despite the notice that my lawyer was coming. The terrible handcuffs were still around my wrists even during a 2 to 3 minute drive to move over to the statement recording room even with my lawyer. Finally, I could be free from them when the interrogation began with my lawyer at a room for recording the statements.

The police obstinately recorded me although my lawyers did not agree to get my statement recorded as it is not mandatory to record the defendants. When my lawyers and I figured it out that my charge was called "the criminal defamation of a Chinese decedent" and the Pyeongtaek City Office requested an investigation of me and my media, we were both astonished and asked, "Is it possible for a dead Chinese [person] to file a complaint against a Korean citizen within this Korean legal system?" The police simply said yes. And then I asked them who sued me, but they kept silent. Still we have yet to know exactly who sued me for that weird crime. The police have a duty to let us know who it was, but they still keep it a secret. The police continued investigating me, asking about the defamed dead Chinese, but I could only refuse the statement, saying "I don't think I have anything to do with it."

The Pyeongtaek City claimed it has been damaged a lot by my broadcast, but it failed to submit the scope and the details of damage during the investigation. On top of it, the police has dug into all of my comments expressed on my YouTube channel about the Moon administration that were not related to the city. For example, they questioned me about my criticism of the policy of the government and the ruling party related to the topics of the "Goryeo Federation System" and the "withdrawal of the U.S. troops out of Korea," which the Moon regime has long been considering to make happen, stating my remarks are all false and demanded me to provide proof. In response to them, I refused to make any statements, because they have nothing to do with what I was charged.

Besides that, they required me to submit what the grounds or sources for every piece of news which I was reading while broadcasting were. They also taunted me with asking this kind of question, "Wasn't it enough for you to just read the newspaper, rather than to express your own opinion on the news you were dealing with?" Everything the police were trying to do seemed to put a gag in my mouth as a journalist to not make comments against the Moon administration's policies. It was an obvious suppression of freedom of speech as stipulated in the Constitution. After the long investigation, I had been detained at Suwon South Police Station for about 30 hours, and at last they released me around 11 p.m. on Thursday, May 14 (Thursday), 2020.

Looking back, this kind of ridiculous thing has happened right after Lee In-young, the former floor leader of the ruling Democratic Party, said in mid-February that every form of media and religious power should be reorganized after the general elections. With the establishment of the precedent of criminal defamation of a Chinese decedent through my case, the Chinese people could sue against our people without a good reason, and they can even threaten the property rights of our people.

According to Article 7 paragraph 1 of the Korean Constitution, it is ruled that "All public officials are servants of the entire people and responsible to the people." In the rule of law, it is definitely against the Constitution that the local police, who get paid from taxes which the Korean citizens contribute, arrested a journalist just for a reason of dealing with the news about a late Chinese man and his guess at the cause of death, three times ignoring the petitions to transfer his case to a geographically closer institution. This is the police's misconduct and also the violation of the obligation of Civil Servants to remain neutral in politics.

A couple of cable TV networks currently exposing Moon regime's corruptions, like TV Chosun and Channel A (the subsidiary companies of the Korean top legacy media outlets of Chosun Ilbo and Dong A Ilbo, respectively), have already failed to get approval to maintain their licenses. They are scheduled to get additional evaluation by the end of this month, but their broadcasting licenses will probably be forfeited.

Gyeongin Broadcasting Corporation, of which a reporter asked a question that made the president uncomfortable at a presidential press conference last year, had already been forced to get shut down in a way of giving in its broadcasting license voluntarily.

In the near future, there will be tremendous pressure on Korean journalists and YouTube (channel) creators who want to protect the freedom of speech in this nation. There will also be great hardship to conscientious believers who dare to defend their religious freedom.

4,300 American missionaries, particularly, came to this land to liberate the innocent people in Joseon Dynasty, a Japanese colony then, to hand them over the new civilization, and to help them establish the Republic of Korea eventually. During the Korean War, the United States sent 1,789,000 U.S. troops and invested $67 billion to rebuild postwar Korea.

It is only possible for the Republic of Korea (ROK) to achieve its freedom, peace, and prosperity that the Korea people enjoy now by American missionaries sent 200 years ago. The ROK-U.S. alliance is also based on the spiritual alliance between the Korean Churches and the Americans. Therefore, In the efforts to destroy the Korea-U.S. alliance and to withdraw U.S. troops from South Korea, Moon is eagerly trying to destroy the churches as his top priority. That's why they rushed to arrest me as well as Pastor Jeon Kwang-hoon (전광훈), the great freedom warrior.

Through my YouTube broadcasting, I have been repeatedly talking about the fact that most of the churches in Korea will be destroyed, when the LGBT bills which Moon regime is pushing are passed, and the bills will be depriving us of the freedom of the press, the freedom of religion, the freedom of assembly and association and so on.

Also I have created a lot of programs of psychological warfare against the Moon administration, North Korea and China, and let them out in the air with a purpose to make them feud and distrust one another. In February and March 2018, 'Anti-China Concert' was held three times in Gwanghwamun, Seoul, and on May 16 in the same year, the 'Anti-China International Seminar' was held under the theme of 'China's hegemonic strategy and the responses of neighboring countries' as one of our team projects. At that time, the international seminar, which was held on the 20th floor of the Seoul Press Center, got a popular response, but all the elevators in the building were timed to suspend their operations at the time of the seminar, so that many participants had to go back home with frustration or had to walk up the stairs to the 20th floor.

As the Moon government came to take power, many of Korean news media have been suffering from oppression. And the Moon government is insisting that any articles that are disadvantageous to it are "fake news."

Moon has manipulated the public opinion in South Korea with the support from the Chinese internet commentators called "50 Cent Army (Wumao)" on his back. The "National Petition Bulletin" on the Blue House website allows any foreigners from everywhere to make a petition as long as they have an email address or Social Network Service (SNS) account, and in this way it has been possible for Chinese people to come in and join every website to fabricate the will of Korean people by simply signing in as if they were Korean citizens. Then the Blue House is distorting the public will by turning it into "public opinion" of Korean majority, making/abolishing laws and conducting police investigations.

And several billions of comments on Moon Jae-in, the strong candidate then were manipulated to form favorable public opinions for him by a group of his supporters using an illegal computer program called a "King Crab" during the presidential election in 2017 and later it was revealed to the public by a whistle blower and then the personnel in charge of it was put on trial. Yet the defendant is taking his office as South Gyeongsang Province Governor.

According to Article 15 of the Public Official Election Act of ROK, legal aliens are allowed to vote for the representatives for local governments only three years after being granted permanent residency in Korea. But now the Moon government has been very easily giving away the permanent residency to any Chinese who ask for it. The permanent residency is being given away usually to Chinese people in so many various ways that it is difficult to list them all.

Once the "decentralization" or the "Local Municipal Police System," which Moon is pushing in order to dismantle the current South Korea into very small pieces, is implemented, the Republic of Korea will be handed to China as one of its tributaries and every opponent will be purged by mobilizing local police forces consisting of Chinese police officers. Also, a large number of Chinese drugs will be flooded into Korea, making numerous Koreans drug addicts.

As soon as the Moon government began, the number of drug trafficking cases caught by the customs has surged as much as six times, more than in 2016. It's hard to imagine how many uncaught cases there are, if the caught cases had grown six folds. Also the number of cases being accessed in the dark web for selling drugs, guns, and child pornography has continued to soar, compared to 2016. Now drugs from North Korea and China are spreading to schools and residential areas.

As I've also mentioned this dozens of times on the air, it has been published in the media that the Moon regime has been caught distributing Bitcoin vouchers produced by a company called "Phoenix Coin" in China to the defectors from North Korea during the last presidential election. The defectors can exchange the vouchers for $130 in cash. In other words, it is possible that China paid a bribe to Moon with Bitcoins.

The Moon administration has dismantled and sunk the "unsinkable aircraft carrier" South Korea, which kept China in check, with the intent to offer the Republic of Korea as a great bribe to China. The "nuclear energy exit policy" of his regime has been intended to dismantle the Korean nuclear power industry, which originated from the technologies of the U.S. nuclear giant Westinghouse Electric Company, and to hand it over to China. Many nuclear companies have already gone broke and many nuclear engineers are heading to China. America's nuclear technology will be transferred to China intact, which will greatly contribute to upgrading China's nuclear weapons capabilities.

If the Moon Jae-in regime's duration is prolonged, China could manufacture sophisticated nuclear missiles with the nuclear technology of Westinghouse and kill countless American people and threaten the Trump administration. Just as the Republic of Korea has become a nuclear hostage to North Korea, the U.S. will face nuclear threats from China and then from Russia. The quick end of the Moon regime as soon as possible will be the only way for the American people to be free from the threat of being nuclear hostages.

If Americans want to enjoy the freedom of speech as they have, they should put the Republic of Korea on the watch list and keep monitoring her officially as a country with oppression of the free press. When it comes true, more media outlets including YouTube (content) creators can disclose more of the regime's corruption freely.

Moon is cutting off the profits of the YouTube creators, who are most likely young and passionate and frequently criticize the regime, by bearing hard pressure on Google Korea through an organization named the KFDA (Korea Communication Standards Commission). Consequently, the freedom-loving creators who can't afford to manage their YouTube broadcasting or to secure operating expenses are getting more forced to move away looking for other jobs to make a living and the number is gradually increasing. If the blocking of such kinds of YouTube creators' payments from their advertising revenues is counted as an example of the restrictions of the freedom of speech through the KFDA, and such a bad practice by Google Korea is banned by its headquarter in the states, it will be surely happening that more and more Korean people come to open their eyes to see what Moon Jae-in is doing now here and that is from all his evil intentions to devastate both Koreas. And the louder voices criticizing his regime will be heard soon everywhere in Korea.

Once again, I would like to express my gratitude to both of you for your love and deep concerns about the future of the Republic of Korea.

God bless you and your family.