[Editorial] It’s the foul-mouthed lawmaker who will ultimately “pay the price”

Posted on : 2013-11-11 16:11 KST Modified on : 2013-11-11 16:11 KST

Controversy continues to simmer over the abusive comments that Saenuri Party (NFP) lawmaker Kim Jin-tae posted on his Facebook page. While accompanying President Park Geun-hye on her tour of Europe, Kim referred to people who took part in an anti-government demonstration in Paris, France, promising to “make them pay.”

Demonstrators are demanding that Kim make a public apology for his comment. Stories about the incident are even being linked to on major American websites.

Kim’s comments were aimed at a demonstration held in protest of the National Intelligence Service (NIS)’s interference in last December’s presidential election. The demonstration, organized by Koreans living and studying in France, took place on Nov. 2 and 3, while Park was visiting Paris.

Reports indicate that the demonstrators held signs saying “Park Geun-hye is not the legal president of Korea.”

Referring to the demonstration, Kim wrote on his Facebook page, “Looks like the a couple dozen members of the Paris branch of the UPP [Unified Progressive Party] came out.”

“I will make the Paris protesters pay,” Kim went on to write. “I’ll have the Ministry of Justice collect photos and other evidence and submit them to the Constitutional Court.”

A ruling party lawmaker threatening Koreans living overseas and promising to make them pay the price for holding an anti-government demonstration illustrates a serious lack of judgment. We need not make any comments about the freedoms of assembly and demonstration that are guaranteed by the constitution.

When a lawmaker on the National Assembly’s Legislation and Judiciary Committee starts talking about collecting photographic evidence and making people “pay the price,” it constitutes a very real threat to the people involved.

The protestors demanded a correction and an apology from Kim, insisting that his claim that the demonstration was planned by the Paris branch of the UPP was a clear falsehood. Slandering protesters on dubious grounds and threatening to cause them tangible and intangible harm has less to do with democracy and more to do with the tactics of gangsters.

Only a few months ago, Park was humiliated during her visit to the US by the scandalous behavior of former Blue House spokesperson Yoon Chang-jung. This time, it was ironically Kim’s excessive loyalty to Park that backfired while he accompanied her on her tour of Europe.

This is hardly the first questionable comment made by Kim, who likes to call himself the “sharpshooter of North Korean sympathizers.” Kim has made offensive comments several times before. He insinuated that a junior prosecutor in charge of the NIS electoral interference scandal had been an activist in his younger years, and he suggested that former Prosecutor General Chae Dong-wook was in an inappropriate relationship with a female lawmaker.

The very fact that someone like Kim grabs attention by making inappropriate comments such as these illustrates the pathetic state of South Korean politics today.

Politics ought to be classy, too. While Kim may think for now that his witch-hunt for North Korea sympathizers is getting him results, he needs to remember that politicians who do not meet a certain standard will ultimately get booted from their job.

Kim should not underestimate the judgment of his constituents in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province.

 

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