President Park Conviction on Implicit Solicitation
|Here is an opinion piece in the Asia Times by Jason Morgan, an associate professor at Reitaku University in Japan, that calls for the release of former President Park Geun-hye:
In late 2016, in a journalistic feeding frenzy of rumors and innuendo, Park’s close friend Choi Soon-sil was accused of Svengali-like behavior. Millions of South Koreans, deeply disturbed by the chicanery of those in high office, hit the streets. Impeachment followed, and the hysteria carried over to Park’s subsequent trial.
But do rumors and headlines translate into hard facts? Despite glaring inconsistencies in the prosecution’s case and cavalier refusals to follow due process, Park was impeached, convicted, and hit with a compound sentence of 33 years behind bars. In a country where a murderer may face 12 years, that is an astonishing punishment.
The evidence used against Park was based on media reportage, not objective proof. Her trial was held four days a week, making it nearly impossible for her defense team to prepare. Meanwhile, the media and prosecution kept up an onslaught of innuendo.
When it came to allegations of corruption, Park was convicted of “implicit solicitation.” Since there was no evidence of wrongdoing and the court was unable to prove that Park had committed any crime, the judiciary introduced the concept of implicit solicitation – which by definition means that there is no evidence.
Park has not been found to have received a single penny from the alleged corruption – a crime the prosecutor’s office has been frantically looking for ever since the 2016 scandal erupted, without success.
Asia Times
You can read more at the link, but these are all facts we have covered here before, but it is good to see them spreading to other media publications. However, with the Moon administration’s control of the Korean media and the international media’s love affair with President Moon, I suspect that Park will be languishing in prison for quite some time.
If this is true, then it will be just another matter of time before those people involved putting her behind the bars unjustly will be punished and themselves put into prison after they are out of power. That is how it’s been for South Korean politics. I would not want to be a politician in this country.
But then again, I read this article in detail and saw this caption at the end of the article:
“Jason Morgan is associate professor at Reitaku University in Japan. His latest monograph, on the law-and-society movement in imperial Japan, is available from Cambria”
A Imperial Japan apologist foreigner working in a Japanese university. Lol.
ROK Korea really needs to use better sources other than obviously biased sources, if he wants everyone to take this site seriously (and not an American Trumpean rightwing nutcase site).
So KM you believe the Korean media to be unbiased and the prosecutor’s office not to be conspiring with the man who masterminded the coup d’etat that has happened in Korea? I’ve got some stunning beachfront property to sell you in Arizona and because I like you I’ll toss in a bridge too. Had a university history professor once who taught world history from a Chinese view (for the record she was Caucasian) after a week I dropped the course because it became that the only view that was acceptable was that China was the crown democracy of the world and every one should follow China’s lead blindly. China does not have all the answers unlike my deluded professor thought. nor does Korea. Sometimes the foreign Japanese professor who studies Imperial Japan is the child to announces the emperor has no clothes. Perhaps, KM open your eyes, you might see commie moon pie is truly a usurper to the presidency of South Korea. For the record we will never get the respect of his name, unlike President Park.
2ID Doc, I didn’t say anything about the accusations being false. They maybe false or they maybe true, who really knows. All I said is ROK Korea should use better non-biased sources other than from American/Korean Conservative sources which are politically biased. And yes, I would say the exact same thing, if ROK Korea used Korean leftist sources to make his claims, instead of the Right. This site is extremely biased and politically to the extreme right, do you deny that at least?
LOL. Everyone knows that Park is at most guilty of being President when the Sewol sank and the children died because of the corrupt company and blind inspectors who ignored safety features painted over and unusable.
She was no more corrupt than any other ajumma in South Korea. But Moon wanted revenge for Roh’s suicide. And he still wants to have every Korean on their knees begging for a handful of rice, with nowhere to get it but from him…
Or at least that is what it looks like after parsing out the Chicom and Nork propaganda.
I’m no prophet from God. Y’all need to read the writing on the wall and interpret it for yourselves.
setnaffa, who is this “everyone” that knows? You and ROK Drop makes accusations, but you need to back it up with credible sources. Extreme right wing political partisan sources used to back up your own politically biased opinions, aren’t credible sources. I am opened to the idea that Park was unjustly framed and imprisoned. But you need to back it up with evidence which leads us to believe that it’s true. But right now I haven’t seen any, except for accusations from politically biased groups and sources.
KM, I suppose I can agree that ROK Drop is right of center, no site can claim absolute center. I think it reflects the attitude of the military & veteran community as a whole. I served with men and women who cross the entire spectrum extreme progressives to extreme conservatives, but in general as a whole we were a bit right of center. I don’t see this site as a right wing site as it’s focus is not on US politics, it’s focus is the Korean Peninsula, and the broader Asian region as it impacts the Koreas.
no one in Korea could write this article, if they did they would be in a cell next to President Pak.
Anyway, South Korea justice is third world justice. Rule of feeling and the mob, not rule of facts and the law.
Flyingsword, that’s not true and you know it. Have you ever even read newspapers like Chosun Ilbo, Donga Ilbo, and Joongang Ilbo? They have been repeating the same accusations from day one. But few Koreans take them seriously. Why? Because they are extreme right, and politically biased. But they are allowed to print their viewpoints with no problems, even if some times they print lots of made-up nonsense with extreme views.
2ID Doc, as for your “I don’t see this site as a right wing site as it’s focus is not on US politics” comment:
This site certainly is a right wing site that’s clearly focused on US politics. For the readers and posters on this site, South Korean politics is judged only based on how well it serves American nationalist’s interests. The posters here support South Korean neocons even if they are corrupt and out of touch with the people, because they better serve America’s geopolitical interests. Even if Park put all the opposition in jail and tortured them, people here would be praising how wonderful of a president she is, as long as her party is a boot licking lapdog of the US. Am I not right?
Flyingsword, if South Korea’s Third World, what’s America? Reporters without Borders, rate the US behind South Korea in freedom of press index.
Whatabourism is such a lame thing…
And everyone in Korea, on both sides of the DMZ, knows the score.
You just need to get over your bias. You preach the “gospel” if dialectical materialism as if it will save you from the Soylent Green trucks when your two-bit agitprop gig is over.
Review the victims of Pol Pot. How many of them were “right-wing”?
You’re for it, “lad”. And you know it. And you’re busy alienating the only people that might have been inclined to lift a finger to help.
Maybe you should have learned to code…
“Even if Park put all the opposition in jail and tortured them,”
Stop talking. My dìck can only get so hard.
First of all conservative media in South Korea has been targeted for reporting fake news while liberal media has not been targeted for their fake news:
https://www.rokdrop.net/2018/06/tv-chosun-faces-legal-action-for-false-report-about-10000-payments-to-north-korea/
President Park was targeted by the left for removal just like they did to President Lee. Lee had barely taken office before the left tried to remove him with the fraudulent anti-US beef protests. Unlike Park, Lee strongly fought back against the left wing attempt to remove him on a fraudulent issue. He went after MBC for the fake news they were reporting: http://world.kbs.co.kr/service/news_view.htm?lang=e&Seq_Code=64396
Lee then drove out board members and installed his own friendly people to get the media under control. That is why when Moon took power he used his union members and violence to drive out the people that Lee had installed.
https://www.rokdrop.net/2018/06/how-president-moon-used-violence-and-labor-unions-to-take-over-mbc-news/
Park on the other hand did not strongly fight back against the forces trying to remove her. She just bunkered down hoping it would go away.
The biggest piece of information to remove her was the tablet PC. Public opinion overwhelmingly turned against her because of it and it turned out to be a fraud and was never used as evidence during the impeachment.
The tablet turned out to contain no evidence per the special prosecutors’ own forensic report and was not even proven to belong to Choi. The tablet PC also did not contain Korean document editing-capable software. How is Choi reviewing and editing Park’s speeches without the needed software?
Plus the forensic report was not released publicly until a year later when she was already impeached. Then you throw in the fact that JTBC changed their story multiple times on how they received the tablet PC and the whole thing clearly stinks and Park did nothing to go after the fake news being published about her. This tablet PC issue is so sensitive to the Blue House that journalist Byun Hee-jae was sent to jail for reporting on it.
Even Professor B.R. Myers who is no Fox News toting conservative has written about how Park was unfairly impeached. He has even written critically of how factions from the prior Lee presidency also bare responsibility for her impeachment by not helping her: http://sthelepress.com/index.php/2018/02/16/constitutional-reform-and-inter-korean-relations-part-1-b-r-myers/
Didn’t say anything about the press, but yes Americans press is not free. Controlled and run by leftist. There is no odjective reporting.
GI, good points all, especially about Prof. Myers.