The Supreme Court has ruled that writing sexually degrading and insulting posts about the victims of the Itaewon tragedy targeting an unspecified number of people in a game chatroom may constitute distribution of obscene materials.
According to the legal community on the 5th, the Supreme Court's 2nd Division (Presiding Justice Oh Kyung-mi) recently overturned the lower court's acquittal of Mr. A, who was charged with violating the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection by distributing obscene materials, and remanded the case to the Seoul Central District Court.
Mr. A was prosecuted for making sexually degrading and insulting remarks such as expressing a desire to have sexual intercourse with female victims of the Itaewon tragedy in an online game chatroom on October 30, 2022, shortly after the Itaewon tragedy.
The first and second trials acquitted Mr. A, stating that his messages were difficult to be considered obscene expressions. The court ruled, "It is difficult to see that the messages explicitly and vividly describe or depict the sexual organs or acts of men and women," and "It is difficult to consider the messages as obscene expressions under the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection."
However, the Supreme Court judged that the messages constituted the display of obscene expressions targeting an unspecified number of people. The Supreme Court stated, "Expressing the deceased, who are the subjects of mourning and condolence, as mere objects and means of sexual pleasure in a degrading manner and expressing illegal and antisocial sexual acts goes beyond simply giving a vulgar or licentious impression; it can be evaluated as seriously damaging and distorting the dignity and value of a person as a human being," and reversed the lower court's decision with a guilty verdict and remanded the case.
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