South Korean opposition lawmaker was not 'arrested by justice minister'
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on November 22, 2023 at 09:45
- 3 min read
- By SHIM Kyu-Seok, AFP South Korea
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“Shim Sang-jung finally arrested," reads part of the Korean-language title of a video shared here on November 5, 2023 that has since been viewed more than 300,000 times.
The title continues: "A highly angered Han Dong-hoon has unsheathed his sword. Shim broke down in tears and begged for her life."
Shim is a lawmaker for the left-leaning Justice Party, and Han is South Korea’s justice minister and a close ally of President Yoon Suk Yeol (archived links here and here).
The video's thumbnail appears to show Shim fighting back tears with her head bowed. While the video itself shows various clips of Shim, it offers no further information about why she was supposedly arrested.
The clip, however, includes intermittent captions that criticise Shim as being a "puppet" of the main opposition Democratic Party and the claim that "the people have turned on her".
It was shared by a YouTube channel called "Patriot President Park Chung Hee" that has more than 680,000 subscribers and regularly posts videos about the supposed arrests of mostly opposition politicians.
The video was also shared here and here on Facebook and here on X, formerly Twitter.
Comments suggest many users believed Han had ordered Shim's arrest.
"This is the meaning of rule of law, no one, not even lawmakers are immune from the law," one user wrote.
Another said: "Thank you Minister Han! All traitors like Sang-jung must be detained at once."
Shim, however, has not been arrested.
Legal prerequisite
South Korean law states that parliament must first hold a vote to approve any arrest warrant issued for a sitting member (archived link).
A search on the National Assembly's website showed no motion was filed regarding an arrest warrant related to Shim (archived link).
Multiple keyword searches also found no official reports or announcements as of November 22 about Shim being placed under arrest or Han issuing an order for her arrest.
A spokesperson at Shim's office told AFP on November 22 the video is "outlandish" and "has absolutely no basis," adding that "all sorts of bizarre claims pop up in politics."
Appearances at legislature
Since the false video was posted on YouTube on November 5, Shim has remained an active parliamentarian.
On November 9, she took part in a parliamentary hearing and questioned the country's transport minister. She can be seen at the 46:52 mark of broadcaster MBC’s live footage of the session (archived link).
Also on November 9, Shim took part in votes at the legislature to pass two high profile bills on unions and public broadcasting, as seen on a screen showing the vote tally at the 52:21 mark of MBC footage (archived link).
Shim later posted about the bills on her official Facebook page, which continues to be updated as of November 21 (archived link).
Unrelated photo and video
A keyword search on Google found the image used as the thumbnail for the falsely shared video matches a Yonhap News photo of Shim at the funeral of a fellow party lawmaker on July 27, 2018 (archived link).
Below is a screenshot comparison of the false thumbnail (left) and the Yonhap News photo from 2018 (right):
The approximately nine-minute-long video falsely shared on YouTube also includes three different clips of Shim speaking.
Keyword searches on YouTube found these clips were taken from parliamentary hearings on April 30, 2019, March 23, 2023 and April 20, 2023 (archived links here, here and here).
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