Right-wing civic group leaders' alleged defamation of comfort women, a euphemism for women victimized by sexual enslavement of Japan during World War II, has been transferred to the prosecution.
According to local Yonhap News Agency, Seoul Jongno Police Station recently sent long-delayed defamation case to the prosecutors, involving 10 individuals leading right-wing civic groups.
Statements by the suspects include that the victims are frauds and had engaged in prostitution voluntarily.
The Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, a civic group advocating former comfort women, filed a police complaint in March 2023, saying the accused had repeatedly made false claims and sabotaged their protests.
The Korean Council has been conducting protests every Wednesday since 1992, calling for Japan's official admission, apology and compensation for the sexual slavery.
But the police in September 2023 decided not to transfer the case, leading to the prosecution requesting a reinvestigation. Police transferred part of the case throughout 2024 and 2025, but prosecutors requested residual investigations by the officers.
Police officers told local media that there was not enough evidence to constitute defamation for some cases, which were changed to insult charges.
The Korean Council claimed that the delay in investigation led to the accused to conduct more actions against the comfort women victims.
Kim Byung-heon, the leader of the National Action for the Abolition of the Comfort Women Act, was arrested in April for insulting the victims. Police said he posted false claims about comfort women 69 times online, while conducting a protest to abolish statues commemorating the victims.
It is believed that as many as hundreds of thousands of women across Asia were victimized by the Japanese military's sexual slavery during the World War II. In Korea, 240 women have been registered by the government as official victims. The actual number of Korean victims is believed to be much higher, as the registration itself started in 1991 and many refrained from making their cases public.
As of 2026, only five of the official victims remain alive, with most of them dying from old age and illness.
minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com
