ASIA / PACIFIC
Page 4 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
May 1, 2017
After sex video, South Korea accused of targeting gay soldiers
ARMED-FORCES ABUSES. South Korean
army soldiers walk to take their trains at the Seoul
Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea. A watchdog
group says South Korea’s army is hunting down and
prosecuting gay servicemen after a video of two male
soldiers having sex was posted on the internet earlier
this year, stoking fear in an already persecuted minor-
ity group. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
By Kim Tong-Hyung
The Associated Press
S
EOUL, South Korea — A watchdog
group says South Korea’s army is
hunting down and prosecuting gay
servicemen after a video of two male
soldiers having sex was posted on the
internet earlier this year, stoking fear in
an already persecuted minority group.
Military investigators looking into the
case have threatened soldiers to out their
gay peers, confiscated cellphones to check
communication records, and even used
dating apps to dupe soldiers into revealing
their sexual identity, said Lim Tae-hoon,
the head of the Military Human Rights
Center for Korea, which tracks abuses in
the armed forces.
South Korea’s army says it’s conducting
a proper criminal investigation into
soldiers allegedly involved with filming
and uploading the video, which is a
violation of the country’s communications
laws and a military penal code that makes
homosexual activity punishable by up to
two years in prison. The army has denied
allegations that investigators are using
the case to embark on a broader mission to
weed out gay soldiers.
“Military investigators used the
information they gained from the
investigation on the sex video to track
down other gay soldiers in the army,
starting by forcing the suspects to identify
who they had sex with and then widening
their search from there,” said Lim, who
said a soldier tipped his group off about the
alleged crackdown.
In conservative South Korea, gays,
lesbians, bisexual, and transgender
(LGBT) people are harshly stigmatized
and struggle to be politically visible, while
a powerful Christian lobby immobilizes
politicians seeking to pass anti-
discrimination laws. That stigma is
amplified in the military, where most
able-bodied South Korean men are
required to serve about two years as the
country maintains a large force in the face
of potential conflict with North Korea.
Gay men are not exempt from
conscription but are banned from engaging
in homosexual activity while serving,
leading to an environment in which they
serve without revealing their sexual
identity for fear of discrimination and
reprisals.
“South Korea’s military doesn’t exclude
gay men from compulsory duty, but once
they enter the military, they are seen as
dangerous and treated as potential
criminals,
as
the
ongoing
army
investigation shows,” said Han Ga-ram, an
openly gay human-rights lawyer.
He said the investigation had “touched
off fear in the LGBT community.”
“Hate crimes against LGBT people are
already a serious problem, and the
government could make it worse by
sending the wrong message by punishing
gay men in the military,” Han said.
The army doesn’t reveal information
about how often it pursues cases against
gay soldiers, but Lim said in the five years
before 2017 he knows of only two cases
where soldiers were prosecuted for
homosexual activity. Since the start of the
year, more than 30 soldiers have come
under investigation and one has been
arrested, an army captain who did not
know the soldiers involved, Lim said.
“The soldiers who are being investigated
had sex with their partners under mutual
consent and not inside the barracks,” Lim
said. “The army has infringed on the
realms of privacy and is falsely claiming
that these soldiers committed wrong-
doings.”
Lim said the arrested captain had never
met the soldier who uploaded the video
and he was arrested for allegedly
obstructing the investigation by delaying
his appearance for questioning due to his
lawyer’s schedule. The captain’s lawyer
could not be reached for comment.
Lim’s group in 2014 uncovered the
bullying death of a 21-year-old army
conscript, a case that shocked the nation
and led to calls for the Defense Ministry to
take serious steps to reduce bullying and
hazing in the military.
The army didn’t provide details of its
investigation into the video, including the
number of soldiers being investigated or
why the captain was arrested. It said in a
statement that the investigation was
proceeding legally and that the privacy of
soldiers was being protected.
The army also stressed that homosexual
activity in the military is banned to allow
soldiers to maintain “sound and healthy
private lives.”
“The army will continue to deal with
activities that disrupt the discipline of
troops based on related laws,” the army
said in a statement.
South Korea’s stance runs counter to
that of the United States, which maintains
bases in the country and is its largest ally.
In 2011, the U.S. repealed its policy,
known as “don’t ask, don’t tell,” which
banned open homosexuality in the mili-
tary. It now allows service members to
reveal they are gay without fear of
investigation or discharge.
Smartphone app lets user ‘walk a mile in a refugee’s shoes’
By Eileen Ng
The Associated Press
K
UALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — The United
Nations has helped launch a smartphone app
that allows users to “walk a mile in a refugee’s
shoes” by simulating the daily struggles of a fictional
Rohingya Muslim who was forced to flee her home.
The “Finding Home” app, developed by the advertising
firm Grey Malaysia, allows users to simulate the phone of
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The Associated Press
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level: Hard
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# 24
#46127
Instructions: Fill in the grid so that the digits 1
through 9 appear one time each in every row, col-
umn, and 3x3 box.
Solution to
last issue’s
puzzle
Puzzle #56727 (Medium)
All solutions available at
<www.sudoku.com>.
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EMPATHETIC APP. Izarra Azuddin, a staff member of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), displays the applica-
tion “Finding Home” on her smartphone during a launch at UNHCR head-
quarters in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The refugee agency and a Malaysian
firm recently launched the app aimed at raising public awareness and em-
pathy about the worldwide struggle of refugees. (AP Photo/Daniel Chan)
citizenship by Myanmar and chased off their land in
repeated outbreaks of communal violence.
“The refugee crisis is everywhere, yet we are inevitably
desensitized to it as it has been going on so long,” said
Grey’s creative director, Graham Drew.
Japan minister resigns over remark about 2011 tsunami
By Mari Yamaguchi
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Difficulty
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“Kathijah,” a fictional 16-year-old who fled persecution in
Myanmar (also known as Burma) and is trying to make a
new life in Malaysia.
Users essentially take over Kathijah’s phone, answer-
ing her calls and texts and scrolling through her photos. In
one scenario, she receives a message from her brother
Ishak back in Myanmar.
“Kat, r u safe?” the message says. “It was a raid, they
found us. Had to run.”
Richard Towles, the United Nations High Commis-
sioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative in Malaysia,
said he hopes the free app will help people empathize with
refugees.
“The refugee story is often a deeply personal one and
difficult for people to understand,” Towles said. “We hope
that this application will allow a viewer to walk a mile in a
refugee’s shoes in order to understand what they go
through every day in order to find safety.”
There are more than 150,000 asylum seekers and
refugees in Malaysia, one of the highest numbers in Asia,
according to UNHCR. About a third of them are ethnic
Rohingya Muslims, identified by the U.N. as one of the
world’s most persecuted minorities, who are denied
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OKYO — Japan’s disaster reconstruction minister
has resigned over his remark that “it was good”
that the March 2011 quake and tsunami had hit
northern Japan instead of areas closer to Tokyo.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe accepted Masahiro
Imamura’s resignation.
Imamura was replaced by Masayoshi Yoshino, former
deputy environment minister from Fukushima, which
was also hit by radiation leaks from a tsunami-hit nuclear
power plant. Nobody died from radiation, but overall, the
tsunami and the quake killed more than 18,000 people
across northern Japan.
Imamura’s resignation came a day after he made the
remark in a speech at a ruling party reception, which Abe
also attended.
“It was good that (the disaster) hit the Tohoku region,
up there. There would have been massive, enormous
damage had it occurred closer to the capital region,”
Imamura said, according to Kyodo news.
Imamura immediately retracted the comment and
apologized, but Abe’s face reportedly froze.
Imamura came under fire earlier in April over his
outburst and a suggestion during a news conference that
those who left voluntarily following the meltdown at the
Fukushima nuclear plant should fend for themselves.
His blunder is the latest in a string of remarks and
scandals that have plagued Abe’s government in recent
months, prompting opposition lawmakers to step up their
effort to weaken Abe’s grip on power.
In March, Abe’s reconstruction adviser, who was
criticized for having his underling carry him on his back to
hop over a puddle while visiting a flooded town, resigned
after making a joke about rubber boots.
Imamura’s predecessor faced an allegation that he stole
female underwear. Also in April, a trade vice minister was
forced to quit over an adultery scandal.