The prosecution has appealed the first trial court's verdict that acquitted former Yonsei University professor Ryu Seok-chun, who referred to the 'Japanese military comfort women' as 'a form of prostitution.'
The Seoul Western District Prosecutors' Office announced on the 30th that it had filed an appeal against the first trial court's verdict that acquitted former professor Ryu, who was charged with defamation.
The prosecution explained that it considered the fact that Ryu's remarks contradicted historically proven facts and that the constitutionally protected academic freedom also has certain limits.
Former professor Ryu was charged with making statements during a 2019 lecture of the 'Development Sociology' course in the Sociology Department at Yonsei University, claiming that "comfort women grandmothers voluntarily became comfort women to engage in prostitution," and that the Jeongdaehyeop (Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan) educated the comfort women grandmothers to testify as if they were forcibly mobilized by the Japanese military.
On the 24th, the first trial court acquitted former professor Ryu of the part where he stated that "comfort women were not forcibly taken." However, the court found him guilty of claiming that the Jeongdaehyeop (the predecessor of the Justice and Memory Foundation) educated false testimony about the forced mobilization of comfort women and sentenced him to a fine of 2 million won.
Meanwhile, after the first trial verdict, former professor Ryu told reporters, "Among the various issues I was charged with, I was acquitted of all except one, for which I was found guilty. I plan to appeal."
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