Yoon Chang-jung

The sexual assault scandal surrounding the South Korean president’s former spokesman took on a new twist after the father of the victim made a statement to reporters on Thursday.

The father of the 21-year-old female intern assigned to help Yoon Chang-jung, the recently fired spokesman for South Korean leader Park Geun-hye, said that Yoon did more than just grope his daughter.

“My daughter wouldn’t have called the police for just being touched on the butt,” he told Yonhap News. “The case is being investigated by the police. I’m sure there were surveillance cameras. We’ll have to wait until the investigation is complete.”

Asked if he and his daughter are considering filing a lawsuit against Yoon, he said, “We’ll decide once the investigation is over.” Continue Reading »

South Korean President Park Geun-hye issued a public apology on Monday over former spokesman Yoon Chang-jung’s sexual assault scandal which overshadowed her successful visit to the United States last week.

A sexual assault charge was filed against Yoon last Tuesday, as he was accused of grabbing the buttocks of a young female intern assigned to help him during his stay in Washington, D.C. He was sacked on Thursday.

Yoon, 56, was also allegedly naked when the woman came to his hotel room. Continue Reading »

Yoon Chang-jung. Photo via Naver

South Korean President Park Geun-hye fired her spokesman on Thursday amid allegations of sexual assault of a young woman in Washington, D.C., earlier this week, according to her office.

Yoon Chang-jung allegedly “grabbed [the victim's] buttocks without her permission” at a D.C. hotel on Tuesday night., a two-page Washington D.C. Police Department report described. The victim is only identified as a female intern who was assigned to assist Yoon during his stay in Washington.

“We are investigating the report of a Misdemeanor Sexual Abuse,” DCPD communications director Gwendolyn Crump told Yonhap News Agency. “We cannot comment further, at this time.” Continue Reading »

Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

South Korean President Park Geun-hye today wrapped up her first U.S. visit with a stop in Los Angeles, where Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa hosted a garden luncheon in her honor at his mansion in Hancock Park, just a stone’s throw away from the nation’s largest Koreatown.

After meeting privately with Villaraigosa and California Governor Jerry Brown, South Korea’s first female president emerged from the residence, pausing briefly to listen to an all-female mariachi band before greeting various dignitaries among the 120 guests invited to the exclusive luncheon.

Villaraigosa is no stranger to South Korea, having visited the country three times. During his visits he would often be introduced as the “mayor of the seventh largest Korean city,” he noted.

“Los Angeles is unthinkable without its Korean American community,” he added.

Park, speaking through an interpreter, acknowledged the fact that Los Angeles boasts the greatest number of ethnic Koreans outside the peninsula. “The same applies for California, as well. So, for us Koreans, L.A. as well as California have a special place in our hearts,” she said. Continue Reading »

The Japanese government reversed course from earlier suggestions that it could revise or even repudiate the two formal apologies made by the country’s leaders from two decades ago.

Fumio Kishida, Japan’s foreign minister, told reporters on Tuesday that the country’s conservative prime minister Abe Shinzo will abide by the views expressed in the 1995 apology by a Socialist prime minister, Tomiichi Murayama.

Following Kishida’s comments, the chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga said in a separate press conference that the Abe government also won’t revise the 1993 apology, when then-prime minister Morihiro Hosokawa recognized the Japanese imperial army’s responsibility in coercing women of its colonized nations into sexual slavery during World War II.

“The Japanese government has accepted the facts of history in a spirit of humility, expressed once again our feelings of deep remorse and our heartfelt apology,” Kishida said. “Prime Minister Abe shares that view.”

Japan issued formal apologies in 1993 and 1995 to the victims of its oppression during the war, many of whom were South Korean “comfort women.” Continue Reading »

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