Park Si Hoo, sexual assault, and how both netizens are turning justice into a sporting event

News broke yesterday that Park Si Hoo was accused of sexual assault by a trainee, and today further details were released by the police to the public.

Korean netizen reaction to those details were predictable, but just as disturbingly, so was that of international netizens.

It was previously assumed that the trainee had filed the lawsuit directly through legal representatives with the police, but it has been revealed that trainee ‘A’ had attended a counseling session, and it was there that she reported about the sexual assault. According to the police, she requested a session at the counseling center at about 8PM, and later reported the case and filed through the center at 11PM.

The investigations on her part are now finished. The police said, “We were going to summon Park Si Hoo at around 9PM on the 19th to confirm matters, but Park Si Hoo appointed a lawyer and therefore requested the summons to be delayed. We are going to mediate a summon date with Park Si Hoo to continue investigations.” Currently, there is no set date.

When asked about how ‘A’ was doing, the police said, “The woman is comparatively fine. Because we could not yet investigate the accused, there is nothing that is confirmed. Once the investigations on the accused is done, we are going to have a briefing about the facts.”

It has also been revealed that there is CCTV footage of ‘A’ and Park Si Hoo at the place they had drank together before the alleged sexual assault happened. It is not yet known if this footage will be used as evidence, but according to the food stand owner, he was able to spot on the CCTV that ‘A’ was able to walk down the stairs fine when the two were leaving, and that he will provide the footage if requested so by the police.

The slant here, of course, is that she wasn’t really drunk leaving the bar, therefore her claim of being unconscious during sex is false. Though logically, that’s neither here nor there, since anything could have happened between then and when the alleged assault occurred.

The part that struck me though is one that renders the primary netizen accusation moot. It appears as though she didn’t actually directly bring the charges herself, rather she went into counseling and her story was reported to the police from there. As such, the netizen criticism about her being evil or having ulterior motives appear to be just plain wrong at this juncture.

As we saw last time though, the Korean netizens have pre-determined their conclusions about her, so they managed to confirmation bias their way into making these details being affirmative information that she’s a liar.

1. [+1,059, -87] Something smells fishy about this woman

2. [+913, -90] She’s a kkot-baem! Release all the personal information about her!

3. [+451, -77] The law is too forgiving to kkot-baems, which is why there are so many of them running around conning men.

Note: ‘Kkot-baem’ is ‘snake woman’ or something to that effect. You get the idea.

Reading the Korean netizen comments, I know what everybody is thinking already, but that’s the danger of these types of cases, right? The problem is that the alleged crime is horrible and the over-the-top fucked up reactions of Korean netizens pisses off a ton of people in the international K-pop community, men and women alike. As such, I think the problem, at least with international netizens right now, is that now they’ve picked a side in this case, just the same as K-netizens. Really though, the open rooting for Park Si Hoo to be locked up, with no consideration for the case itself, is a bit unnerving.

In other words, his guilt or innocence has now become less about actual justice and more about getting justice against Korean netizens and their shitty attitudes, and I think that’s always trouble, for the same reason it was in the case of Co-Ed‘s Kangho.

Yeah, you’d like to see K-netizens change their attitude or shut the fuck up or whatever, but automatically defaulting to labeling a guy a rapist is not the way to go about it. Because the reality is that whether he’s found innocent or guilty, it won’t change their opinion in general terms, as that change lies in a deeper sociological context than that of one celebrity being convicted or not. So I don’t think that netizens turning into opposing rooting masses is anything positive, nor is it really appropriate when the lives of people are at stake, both alleged victim and alleged perpetrator alike.

Yet, at least to me, it too often seems like these cases are turned into a sporting event involving Korean netizens versus international netizens in a competition to see who can leap to conclusions the fastest, and they end up less about any semblance of the word ‘justice’.