Japan Institute for National Fundamentals

Academic freedom in South Korea has been protected. On February 13, the Supreme Court finally acquitted former Yonsei University professor Ryu Seok Chun, who had been criminally charged for denying the coercive recruitment of wartime comfort women and describing them as engaged in “a form of prostitution” in his lecture. The top court upheld the Seoul High Court’s ruling that his remarks did not constitute a crime of defamation, turning down the prosecution’s appeal against the high court ruling.

Prosecutors failed to show cases of coercive recruitment

When discussing the comfort women issue with students in a lecture on “Sociology of Development” at Yonsei University in 2019, Ryu said that comfort women were not victims of coercive recruitment by Japanese military but engaged in “a form of prostitution” for economic reasons that still exists in South Korean society today. As a student took a recording of his remarks to the media, Ryu was severely criticized and disciplined, and his Sociology of Development course was terminated by the university authorities in the middle of the semester. A supporting group for former comfort women named the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan and others filed criminal charges against Ryu, leading prosecutors to indict Ryu at home in November 2020.

Prosecutors alleged that the following three statements constituted defamation.

(1) A false statement to the effect that former comfort women voluntarily became comfort women to engage in prostitution.

(2) A false statement to the effect that the supporting group educated former comfort women to testify that they were coercively recruited by Japanese military.

(3) A false statement to the effect that high-ranking officers of the supporting group were senior members of the (pro-Pyongyang) Unified Progressive Party and the group was cooperating with and following North Korea.

During the trial process, Ryu insisted that he did not say that former comfort women had voluntarily become comfort women and that there was no historical fact that comfort women were coercively recruited, submitting as evidence “Anti-Japan Tribalism” edited and authored by Lee Yong Sook and the Korean language version of my book on the comfort women issue. In response, the prosecution failed to provide any actual case of coercive recruitment.

Academic freedom protected

In January 2024, the Seoul Western District Court acquitted Ryu over the first above statement that wartime comfort women engaged in prostitution, ruling the statement as representing a personal opinion expressed in discussions during his lecture that should be protected under academic freedom. He was sentenced to a fine of 2 million won over the second statement and acquitted over the third statement. However, the ruling did not mention that the prosecution could not cite any specific case of the coercive recruitment of comfort women alleged by prosecutors. Both Ryu and the prosecution appealed the ruling. In October 2024, however, the Seoul High Court rejected both appeals. In the latest decision, the Supreme Court finalized the ruling on the ground that there was no error in the original trial court judgement.

Ryu said: “It took five and a half years to get it proven that the general understanding that comfort women were coercively recruited is wrong. I am grateful that the court has affirmed that my lecture had no legal problems. I thank the court for ruling that there are sufficient grounds for my thinking about the reality of comfort women.”

Tsutomu Nishioka is a senior fellow and a Planning Committee member at the Japan Institute for National Fundamentals and a specially appointed professor at Reitaku University. He covers South and North Koreas.