May 18 Memorial Foundation Files Complaint Against Chairman Jung Sung-san for Claiming North Korean Military Infiltration on May 18

The May 18 Memorial Foundation and Gwangju City filed a complaint with the Gwangju Police Agency on the 18th against Jeong Seongsan, chairman of the NK Culture Foundation (a North Korean-born film director), for violating the Special Act on the May 18 Democratic Movement, etc. (prohibition of spreading false information). Photo by May 18 Memorial Foundation

The May 18 Memorial Foundation and Gwangju City filed a complaint with the Gwangju Metropolitan Police Agency on the 18th against Jung Sung-san, chairman of the NK Cultural Foundation (North Korean defector and film director), for violating the Special Act on the May 18 Democratization Movement (prohibition of spreading false information).

The legal representatives for this complaint are Choi Ki-young, Yoo Han-byul, and Kim Moon-seok, attorneys from the Gwangju-Jeonnam branch of Lawyers for a Democratic Society (Minbyun).

Chairman Jung made false claims on his YouTube channel, 'Jung Sung-san TV,' alleging that the May 18 Democratization Movement was an armed uprising and riot instigated by North Korean special forces under the orders of Kim Il-sung and South Korean people.

This goes beyond evaluating the value of the May 18 Democratization Movement and instead slanders its spirit, the specific course of the civic movement, and its achievements with falsehoods.

The foundation confirmed, through citizen reports and its own monitoring, a total of 35 videos spreading false claims about May 18 from May 18, 2019, to September 22 of this year.

Chairman Jung has repeatedly claimed that ▲May 18 was an armed uprising based on the spirit of Kim Il-sung, ▲North Korean special forces infiltrated and fought during May 18, and ▲there are many fake recipients among the May 18 merit awardees.

Specifically, he asserted, "The Gwangju people's uprising was thoroughly an armed revolt by the South Korean people based on the unification spirit of our leader Kim Il-sung. The essence of the May 18, 1980 incident is the story of a special forces member sent by the North Korean regime Kim Il-sung and an officer who participated as a paratrooper at the time. What do you think is the key point?"

A representative of the May 18 Memorial Foundation stated, "May 18 was not a people's riot under the instructions of Kim Il-sung, as Chairman Jung claims. The actions of citizens in 1980 were legitimate acts to protect constitutional order, and the violent suppression of these actions was an act of undermining the constitutional order. The courts and the National Intelligence Service have repeatedly confirmed the falsehood of the May 18 North Korean special forces intervention theory."

Choi Ki-young, secretary-general of the Minbyun Gwangju-Jeonnam branch, said, "Those who claim North Korean military intervention in May 18 must provide convincing and rational evidence for how North Korean soldiers could have broken through the surveillance of Chun Doo-hwan, who was the security chief at the time, and the United States, fought in Gwangju via the sea off Shinan in Jeonnam and Mudeungsan, and how they could have taken hundreds of bodies to the North to be buried in the Martyrs' Cemetery. They must substantiate their claims that May 18 was an armed conflict led by North Korean special forces with credible and logical grounds."