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University student Kim Saem holds a press conference outside of Seoul Central District Court on May 25

What’s the reward for guarding a comfort woman statue for a year and a half? For one university student, it’s a fine of 2 million won (US$1,790).

Just before the court’s decision, former comfort women Kim Bok-dong and Gil Won-ok submitted handwritten petitions and more than 80,000 South Koreans added their name to an online petition requesting leniency, but it wasn’t enough. The university student who stood up when no one else was taking responsibility for the Dec. 2015 comfort women agreement between South Korea and Japan and spoke up on behalf of the majority of South Koreans opposing that agreement is now saddled with a fine.

On May 25, 25-year-old university student Kim Saem was convicted of violating the Act on the Punishment of Violence and the Assembly and Demonstration Act and given a fine of 2 million won by Kim Ji-cheol, the judge of the Seoul Central District Court. Kim Saem was convicted on all four charges, with the judge concluding that “Kim’s behavior had violated social conventions.”

Kim was notorious as the university student who was being tried four times in one month. She had been indicted separately, and at different times, for organizing demonstrations against the comfort women agreement signed on Dec. 28, 2015, and against the state-authored Korean history textbooks. The first charge against her was trespassing in a public building. On Dec. 31, 2015, Kim and other members of Peace Butterfly (a civic group dedicated to helping the former comfort women, of which Kim was the president) led a sit-in inside the Japanese Embassy in the Jongno District of Seoul, chanting “scrap the negotiations that betray the nation.” She was charged with a crime that allowed aggravated punishment for “collective action” because she had organized the sit-in with more than 30 other members of the group. This was followed by three other indictments (violations of the Assembly and Demonstration Act) in connection with the “surprise protest” against the state-authored textbooks that she held at Gwanghwamun Plaza in Oct. 2015 without advance notification.

Facing four trials at the same time, Kim found herself in court about once a week. “I believed that I’d done the right thing, but going to court once a week is naturally disheartening and made me feel like a sinner,” she said. Kim had been tried on four charges in three separate cases by the same bench since Oct. 2016, but her request to combine the three cases was not accepted until Apr. 18.

“The comfort women agreement and the state-authored textbooks are issues that most South Koreans haven’t accepted. The Assembly and Demonstration Act and the Criminal Act are supposed to be interpreted in light of Constitutional values, but this court appears to have interpreted the law superficially,” said Seo Jung-hui, an attorney with the law firm Dong Hwa, after the sentencing. Seo, who represented Kim in the trial, said that Kim intends to appeal.

“Today’s verdict is tantamount to prosecuting Yu Gwan-sun [Korean independence activist who led the Mar. 1 Movement in 1919] for sedition and for violating the National Security Law,” Seo added.

“In a frustrating situation in which the state is not taking responsibility for the issues with the agreement, I’d like to know what other options one university student had for making herself heard,” Kim said, challenging the characterization of her actions as a “surprise sit-in” and an “illegal demonstration.”

After Prosecutors asked the court to sentence Kim to one and a half years in prison, they’re likely to come under fire for an unreasonable indictment and for an excessive request for punishment. Even though the court found Kim guilty on all counts, it only gave her a fine, concluding that “Kim ended up committing the crime not for her own individual gain but in order to raise awareness of the injustice of South Korea and Japan’s comfort women agreement and the government’s monopolization of the authorship of Korean history textbooks.”

“Prosecutors wanted Kim to be given a sentence of one year and six months, which is the kind of sentence that might be given for protests with an unusual level of violence. By basically acknowledging the legitimacy of Kim’s intentions, the court illustrated the absurdity of the Prosecutors’ sentencing request,” Seo said.

“The administration that made the humiliating agreement has been impeached by the power of the people, but that 2015 agreement remains in place. University students won’t stop until the long-standing issues left by former president Park Geun-hye have been dealt with,” Kim said after her sentencing, stressing each word, and with a surprisingly cheerful expression on her face.

By Hyun So-eun, staff reporter

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