"Lee Dong-gwan Media Control? Opposition's Political Offensive"
Lee Dong-gwan, Special Advisor for External Cooperation at the Presidential Office, who has been embroiled in controversy over allegations of school violence (hakpok) involving his child, is expected to be appointed as the vacant Chairman of the Korea Communications Commission as early as the 28th. Meanwhile, Hong Seok-jun, a member of the National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting and Communications Committee from the People Power Party, emphasized that "this is a completely different issue from ordinary school violence" and stated that there is no problem with the appointment.
On the 28th, Hong said on BBS's 'Jeon Young-shin's Morning Journal,' "Victims of school violence usually carry the mental and physical aftereffects for life. However, it turns out that they had already reconciled after the fight at that time," he said.
Former Blue House Chief of Public Relations Lee Dong-kwan accompanied former President Lee Myung-bak on his departure to Bahrain at Incheon Airport on the 12th and expressed his position regarding the current administration's National Intelligence Service comment investigation. Photo by Yoon Dong-joo doso7@
He added, "When this special advisor's son transferred to another school, his classmates and homeroom teacher actually tried to stop him. Such stories began to emerge," and said, "The student who was supposedly the victim, now grown up, appeared in the media and said, 'We did fight back then, but we reconciled, and although we tried to prevent the transfer, the school sent him anyway.'” This indicates that although there was a dispute, it was not at the level of school violence.
In response to a host's question about whether the issue of this special advisor's son would be highlighted amid the rising concern over infringement of teachers' authority following the death of an elementary school teacher in Seoul, Hong said, "The fundamental issue is different," and explained, "This case (school violence) was not about teachers' authority or any problem between the teacher and the special advisor's son. Especially, the teacher who first reported this issue in 2015 was not the homeroom teacher at the time but a teacher who heard about it secondhand."
The Presidential Office is expected to appoint this special advisor as the Chairman of the Korea Communications Commission, which has been vacant for nearly two months following the dismissal of former Chairman Han Sang-hyuk. Hong said, "I also expect the appointment to proceed around today," adding, "Because the term of the previous Chairman of the Korea Communications Commission ends at the end of July." Considering the schedule for the confirmation hearing, the timing is appropriate.
The Democratic Party criticizes the special advisor for attempting to control the media through the 'cultural blacklist' during the MB administration. In response, Hong said, "the special advisor's media control is partly a political attack by the Democratic Party," adding, "Because when you look at the documents cited as evidence of media control, the special advisor himself denies knowing about them, and in fact, nothing was actually implemented in that way."
He continued, "If it were truly media control, during the Democratic Party's Moon Jae-in administration, forcibly removing KBS President Ko Dae-young or MBC President Kim Jang-gyeom, or trying to expel TV Chosun when approving TV general programming channels?did these things actually happen? The answer is no," he said. "Therefore, I believe the controversy over media control was a political attack from the beginning."
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