Posts misrepresent South Korean politician's comments about former president's grave

"Controversy ensues over Lee Jun-seok's extreme comments calling for the exhumation of Park Chung-hee's grave," reads the Korean-language post shared on Facebook on March 29.

The image shows Lee Jun-seok, the leader of the minor conservative New Reform Party, speaking in an apparent interview alongside a quote that reads: "Park Chung-hee cracked down on independence fighters and civic activists. After he came into power he cracked down on ordinary citizens and student activists."

Lee formed the New Reform Party to compete in the upcoming parliamentary election on April 10, after he was ousted as head of the ruling People Power Party (PPP) last year over deep disagreements with President Yoon Suk Yeol (archived link).

He is a frequent target of attacks in pro-PPP social media groups, where users often criticise him for betraying conservative values and taking the party in a more moderate direction.

Image

Screenshot of the false post on Facebook, captured on April 2, 2024

Park Chung-hee ruled South Korea as a military dictator for nearly two decades since 1961, during which he outlawed criticism of his regime and brutally repressed dissenters. After his assassination in 1979, the former president was buried at the country's national cemetery in Seoul (archived link).

In his youth, Park also served as an officer in the Manchukuo Imperial Army -- a military force of a puppet regime under Japanese control that cracked down on Korean independence activities in China's northeast (archived link). 

Identical claims were shared on Facebook here, here and here. 

But the image's captions misrepresent Lee's actual comments about Park and his supposed quote in the post was also fabricated. 

Debate program comments

A keyword search on YouTube found the image corresponds to a clip from a debate program aired by South Korean broadcaster SBS in July 2020 (archived link).

In the program, Lee and other panel members discussed criticisms raised against the burial of the late South Korean general and war hero Paik Sun-yup at the national cemetery. 

Following Paik's death at the age of 99 on July 10, 2020, controversy ensued over the South Korean government's decision to inter him at the Daejeon National Cemetery, with some lawmakers arguing he did not deserve to be buried there due to his collaboration with Korea's Japanese colonisers during his youth (archived links here, here and here). 

In the debate, Lee argued Paik's past should not be a reason to bar his burial at the national cemetery. He mentioned the case of former president Park, who was still interred at the cemetery despite his previous collaboration with Japanese forces.

The image corresponds to the 4:11 mark of the original clip (right), seen in a screenshot comparison with the image shared in the false post (left) below:

Image

Screenshot comparison of the image shared in the false posts (left) and a corresponding section in the original clip posted by SBS (right)

"The reason why we record collaborationist activities is to leave behind a lesson for future generations so that they don't repeat these mistakes," Lee says in the section, referring to Park and Paik's history with Japan.

"We shouldn't use these records just to humiliate people."

The caption in the frame reads: "Attacking [Paik] for the sake of humiliation is beside the point."

Nowhere in the four-minute, 17-second clip does Lee discuss other aspects of Park's rule as president, such as his repression of dissenters, nor does he call for the ex-leader's grave to be dug up. 

AFP further went through the entire episode of the show through a South Korean paid streaming service but found no comment resembling the false captions or the claim shared in the false posts (archived link). 

AFP also could not find any news reports of Lee publicly calling for the exhumation or the relocation of Park's grave. 

In fact, Lee has publicly expressed his admiration for the former president and has visited Park's tomb at the national cemetery on multiple occasions, as seen in reports here and here (archived links here, here and here).

AFP previously debunked a similar claim about a photo falsely claimed to show Paik's grave at a national cemetery desecrated by vandals.