Seoul Court gets tough on political talk

South Korea's Supreme Court on Monday recommended new penalties on certain politically related speech, including the spread of false information in online forums and social media, as the country heads toward its presidential election in December.

The court's sentencing commission said South Koreans who "vilify" political candidates on Internet message boards or social-message systems such as Twitter should face up to a year in prison and financial penalties of four million won ($3,522).

It also recommended that people who spread false information online or via social networks face up to three years in prison, plus a fine of as much as 10 million won, if the false information gets a candidate elected.

The recommendations aren't binding, but the sentencing commission's guidelines are influential and likely to be practiced by most judges.

The move is the latest in South Korea's continuing struggle to control political speech, particularly online. The country has long enforced strict rules about political advertising, including where and when ads can be placed.

But the rise of the Internet—largely helped by government policy to deploy broadband connections across the nation more than a decade ago—created a dilemma.

Technological advancement eroded a social code that is shaped to create respect for elders and prevent embarrassment to individuals. It also challenged political speech restrictions influenced by South Korea's fractious relations with North Korea.

The government in the past three years has removed thousands of Internet postings from online forums for using profanity or praising North Korea, blocked access to Twitter accounts of government critics and arrested artists for work that appears to take a political stand. This month, the government extended the reach of its agency that rates movies and videogames to videos that are posted online.

The conflict over political speech emerged in 2008 after the formation of the Korea Communications Standards Commission, whose members are appointed by political parties to police the Internet for obscenity, defamation and national-security threats.

In 2010, Seoul police for the first time arrested a man for political speech conducted via Twitter. The man conducted a political poll and used the message service to promote it. The man faced a small fine for failing to comply with election-law requirements for polls, which stipulate the disclosure of methods and sample size.

During the Seoul mayoral election in October and a nationwide election for parliament in April, South Koreans using Twitter resorted to making vague references to candidates in order not to run afoul of authorities.

Lee Ha, an artist in Suwon, was questioned by police in July after creating a poster that depicted the presidential candidate of the ruling New Frontier Party, Park Geun-hye, dressed as Snow White. In Mr. Lee's drawing, Ms. Park holds an apple with a bite taken out that reveals a caricature of her father, Park Chung-hee, the military president who ruled over South Korea for most of the 1960s and 1970s.

No charges have been filed, though prosecutors continue to investigate, Mr. Lee said Monday.

"In Korea, there are limitations that don't exist in other developed countries in terms of political speech," he said. "In Korea, when artists use a politician's image, the legal system becomes very sensitive and punishes artists. We shouldn't give in."

(Published by WSJ - August 23, 2012)