Two South Korean women journalists named Park Hyo-sil and Kang Kyung-yoon, who both work as a police force in South Korea, took a surprising change when they helped uncover a sex scandal involving well-known K-pop stars. Little did they realize that their quest for truth may require a lot of individual sacrifices.
It was September 2016 and Park, a Seoul- based magazine writer, had logged off for the trip. When her director called her with a tip from a reliable police source, she was about to meet a friend.
He informed me that a significant event was being looked into that involved a big-name star named Jung Joon-young and secretly recorded sex footage.
Jung was a great singer- singer in the group, Drug Restaurant, and a Screen star loved by millions. However, the source claimed Jung’s girl had accused him of quietly filming her during intercourse, a violence known as “molka” in South Korea.
Park made up her meal plans and immediately returned to the office to satisfy her editor.
” We just did n’t want to miss the scoop”, Park recalls. I published the story at 22:50 on Friday night.
I had no notion how large it would be.
Within hours, the account made headlines across South Korea”. Media stores went into a fury,” she says.
Jung’s management staff took action and released a statement calling the police investigation an “unimportant event inflated by the click.”
Jung’s supporters accuse his partner of fabricating the sun right away. Next they turned to Park.
” The internet was the criminal,” she says”. I endured the strain.
The blogger received a lot of offensive and destructive messages online. Folks insulted her by posting pictures of her face and body online. What a mouth. Makes me want to mark on it, “one information read.
She says people phoned her news director and threatened him:” If you do n’t bucket her, we’re going to set fire to your constructing.”
Park says:” They were sending me dying challenges. My husband yelled at me to leave the house and never enter the office because it sounded so risky, and he was very concerned.
Six months later, the mistreatment escalated.
” I started getting calls in the morning, and they lasted for about three to four hours.” When I did n’t answer the phone, they started sending vulgar photos.”
Every evening, hundreds of emails flooded Park.
” I was female and I was shocked to my stomach.” I was thus emotionally shattered that actually going out of the house was tough,” she says”. After that, I had two abortions and then I am single.”
While it may not have been the only reason, Park believes anxiety may have played a component in her abortions”. I’m certain it did control it,” she confides.
While Park grappled with the aftermath, Kang Kyung- yoon, an entertainment writer with SBS, one of South Korea’s biggest commentators, had been investigating some K- music stars herself.
She was about to complete Park’s initials.
When Jung was first asked to side in his mobile phone for analysis by the authorities in 2016 about molka, he was asked to do so. He made the decision to give it to a personal forensics firm, which he has not explained.
Jung did not know it, but at the moment a version of the camera’s data was made. An unnamed accomplice who had access to it decided to make it public three years later. Kang ultimately received the information.
Tang recalls the time she saw what the phone information contained,” My soul also hurts when I think of that.”
Using Sun
In this BBC World Service video, journalist Park Hyo-sil and Kang Kyung-yoon share their side of the story.
Watch right away on BBC iPlayer ( UK only ) or the BBC World Service YouTube channel.
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She had anticipated seeing the 2016 report on Jung and his partner, but it was not that. Instead, she discovered a group chat that featured a large number of sexually explicit videos and photos of unconscious people being shared among the party, which included Jung and additional female K-pop stars.
Among them were Choi Jong- ho, head guitarist of rock group FT Island, and Seungri, a big star who had been part of K- pop supergroup, BigBang.
As Kang delved deeper, she discovered shocking markets that detailed the gang rape of a dead woman who had fallen and struck her nose.
” I got so scared yesterday … It sounded like her skull was cracking, “one of the men admitted. Jung messaged:” Virtually the funniest day of my entire life.”
Kang was shocked by the disclosures.
” They were thus ugly, playing around with ladies as if they were playthings,” she says.
Kang likewise saw communications that suggested a senior officers email was protecting the group.
Even if it meant enduring abuse herself, she knew she had to shed light on this murky underside of the K-pop market.
Kang continued to check, and when she had found sufficient proof, she published a story that exposed the behavior of the chat team members Jung, Choi, and Seungri.
This day, there was a change. When Kang’s narrative was out there, the government acted hastily and Jung was the first to be arrested.
This sparked the push to file claims against the stars and other subjects.
It took tremendous power. When Jung’s girl initially reported him to the victims in 2016, the public had already seen the turn toward her. Some people overcame their apprehension about facing criminal charges against the musicians because they were afraid of being treated unfairly and humiliated.
But as justice was served, the troll subjected Kang to some” inexplicable personal attacks”.
Kang says:” At the time I was female, correctly? So they called me femi- brat. Pregnant femi- brat. Left- aircraft femi- brat.
” I was thus afraid, in case something happens to the child, because it was the first time in about five years of marriage that I’d managed to fall female. My soul was extremely lonely and exhausted”.
Kang says the “most shocking” comments that” I ca n’t even utter” were directed at her child in a harassment campaign that lasted three years, but” I have no regrets”, she says.
Jo Elfving- Jung, interact professor of Asian society and culture at Curtin University, Perth, Australia, says in exposing the K- pop stars, Park and Kang largely experienced” the very same violence” that hushed the victims who were made to “feel unwilling to speak”.
She claims that talking about gender inequality can be “very divisive” in South Korea, and that misogyny, or “hate of women,” was at the core of what the victims and journalists faced.
Missogyny is not just something that men say about women; it’s also about power and an attempt to silence any notions that all genders have equal value, she says.
Park and Kang are beginning to notice a cultural shift in South Korea despite the abuse both journalists experienced.
Their actions sparked discussions about how the entertainment industry’s actors abused their positions of authority and called for greater protection for women against crimes like molka.
Today, Kang is a mother to a daughter. She is still haunted by the constant blatant abuse she endured in return for her role in uncovering the truth, but she is optimistic that their efforts will serve as a “warning about how sex and power in the K-pop industry can corrupt”
She says,” We threw a single pebble into a huge pond… It calmed down again, but I hope it’s still in people’s memories so that we can call it out much sooner.”
• Jung was given a five-year sentence for molka distribution and gang rape.
• Choi was given a two-and-a-half year prison sentence for his involvement in the gang rape.
• Seungri was convicted of obtaining prostitutes for investors, embezzlement, molka and inciting violence. He was sentenced to 18 months on appeal
• The senior police contact was cleared of all charges involving the chat group members.
All have now been released.