Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
The death of Lee Sun Gyun in the midst of his drug investigation has justifiably led to considerable criticism of government policy, police tactics, and media coverage, with the roles they played in the actor’s suicide being scrutinized since. The Korean entertainment industry has decided to act as well, as 29 prominent arts and culture groups — including the Busan International Film Festival, Korean Entertainment Producer’s Association (KEPA), and figures such as Parasite director Bong Joon Ho — have teamed up and formed the Association Of Solidarity Among Cultural Artists (ASACA).
Collectively they urged the Korean media and authorities to work towards preventing things like this from happening again, and at a recent press conference it was Bong, actor Kim Eui Sung, singer Yoon Jong Shin, and director Lee Won Tae who spoke for the association (with many later posting about it on social media), calling for an investigation into the police’s conduct during the drug investigation, requesting the media clarify their reporting process and delete unnecessary articles, and demanding a revision of laws to protect artists. (1/2/3)
“We have all come together under the firm conviction that no such incident should ever take place again, after facing the tragic death of actor Lee Sun-kyun,” the organization said in its statement. “We will call for a probe to discover the truth [of Lee’s case], request media outlets to delete articles that do not fulfill their function as journalism, as well as urge authorities to revise the law to protect the human rights of artists.”
“We hope that such a tragedy will not happen again in the process of investigating pop culture artists. This is the demand of the cultural and artistic community facing the death of the late Lee Sun-kyun,” said Yoon Jong-shin.
“Throughout the two months, from the initial leak of internal information regarding the deceased’s investigation to the time of his death, we urge a thorough investigation by the authorities to ascertain whether there were any lapses in police investigative security,” Bong said, reading from an official statement prepared by 29 prominent arts and culture groups, including the Busan International Film Festival and the Korea Entertainment Producer’s Association. “We request a thorough investigation to determine if there were any unlawful media responses during the investigation.”
“Even if the investigative procedures of the authorities were deemed legal, the government and the National Assembly must not remain silent on this tragic incident,” the statement read. “It is crucial to examine if there are any problems with the current laws protecting human rights in criminal cases and information disclosure and initiate necessary legislative revisions.”
“Clear legislative improvements are needed to ensure that principles and exceptions are not reversed between the human rights of suspects and the public’s right to know, and that investigative authorities do not arbitrarily interpret and apply the intent of the law,” the ad hoc group said.
Hopefully something productive emerges from this, as the status quo is clearly an absurd way for things to operate, especially with regards to how the police gleefully leaked everything and how the media shamelessly ignored ethical guidelines.
Granted, my fear is that the police will skate on this entirely, the media won’t revise any guidelines or have consequences fall on them, and it’ll just be used as an excuse to do shit like adding to the police budget, further media censorship, and/or restrict freedom of speech instead.
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As far as Lee Sun Gyun’s case continuing to matter, if you wanna do the whole reactionary “he was no angel” angle to all this, then alright. Whatever. However, to me it’s not even about him specifically, I’m just trying to say that one should consider the wider implications here. That the next time government policy, the media apparatus, and their authoritarian arm decide they need a “win”, it might be your fave who gets faced with a 19-hour interrogation only to later be demonized in the press. Hell, they literally tried to do it in this case with G-Dragon using just the word of a madam who was also (allegedly) a drug distributor and blackmailer. It’s just confusing to not put a lot of importance on that aspect of this mess, and even worse yet, it doesn’t take a whole lot to imagine what a regular person might have to face if the authorities want to add to their statistics.
