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A author who defected from North Korea has received a defamation case he filed towards a fellow defector in South Korea who accused him of rape and towards the broadcaster that first reported his allegations. Was.
The South Korean Supreme Courtroom final month upheld a decrease courtroom's ruling in favor of creator Jang Jin-sung. Mr. Jang sued his accuser, Sung Sel-hyang, and TV channel MBC in 2021, after MBC aired experiences about Ms. Sung's allegations.
The decrease courtroom's October ruling discovered Ms. Sung's allegations false and ordered her, MBC and two different defendants – an MBC reporter and Ms. Sung's husband – to pay Mr. Jang a complete of 4.7 million received, or $35,000. Make fee. In loss. It additionally ordered MBC to not rebroadcast its 2021 experiences about Mr. Zhang or submit them on-line.
Mr. Jang, who fled North Korea in 2004, is among the North's most internationally acknowledged defectors, greatest identified for his 2014 memoir “Pricey Chief.”
Ms. Sung, who defected to the South from North Korea, mentioned that when she first met Mr. Jang in 2016, she was raped by Mr. Jang and a South Korean colleague whereas he was working a specialised web site. . Within the information concerning the reply.
However a decrease courtroom discovered Ms. Sung's allegations false and mentioned her statements have been inconsistent, unreliable and lacked supporting proof, in response to the courtroom ruling, which was seen by The New York Occasions.
Though MBC argued that its experiences have been within the public curiosity, the judges mentioned the channel was biased in direction of Ms Sung and had reported that her allegations have been true regardless of a scarcity of proof. The Supreme Courtroom's March 14 abstract judgment supported the decrease courtroom's findings.
“I’ve skilled the programs of each North and South Korea,” Mr. Jang, 53, mentioned on Friday. “The evil in North Korea was its one-man dictatorship that created a community of jail camps. I discovered that the evil in South Korea was pretend information, which tries to create prisons of public opinion.”
Ms. Sung filed a lawsuit accusing Mr. Zhang and his affiliate of rape and different intercourse crimes and requested police and prosecutors to carry fees towards them. However in the end he refused to take action citing lack of proof. Mr. Jang's affiliate was additionally a plaintiff within the defamation go well with; He was awarded 11 million received in damages.
Mr. Jang first gained consideration in South Korea along with his poems about starvation in North Korea. His best-selling memoir describes his life as a propaganda author in a totalitarian state and his eventual escape from it. The e-book has been translated right into a dozen languages, and Mr. Jang appeared on the duvet of a British journal.
Mr Jang is one in every of a collection of outstanding South Korean males accused of previous sexual misconduct because the #MeToo motion takes maintain within the nation. Lots of them have been convicted of sexual harassment.