Lawyer turns air blue with anti-Kim curses
The Korean Broadcasting System aired a live TV debate among four panelists on Saturday night with the topic of “How do we see the entry of pro-North Korea lawmakers into the National Assembly?”
After some of the proportional lawmakers-elect of the Unified Progressive Party were labeled as pro-Pyongyang, the issue has stood at the center of a heated political debate.
“For a lawmaker of South Korea, why is it so hard for him or her to declare, ‘At least, I don’t follow the Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un regimes?’?” Jun Won-tchack, a conservative lawyer and one of the panelists, said in the debate.
“Let me put it easily. If one can answer yes to the question, ‘Are Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong-il sons of bitches?’ then he or she is not a blind follower of the North.”
As the moderator of the debate tried to stop him, saying that the swear words were inappropriate for a TV debate, Jun challenged, “Is Kim Jong-il a son of a bitch or not? What’s wrong with airing this? If someone avoids answering this question, then he or she is a blind follower of the North.”
After Jun’s remarks were aired, the public showed mixed responses. Throughout yesterday, his name was one of the most popular search words in many Internet portal sites.
About 400 messages supporting him were posted on Jun’s homepage.
In contrast, others criticized him for using the swear words during a live TV debate. Chin Jung-kwon, a prominent liberal critic of current affairs, posted on Twitter that Jun’s remarks brutally made a caricature of the freedom of ideology and the duty of a public figure.
It was not the first time that the 57-year-old conservative lawyer caused controversy with his candid remarks.
In the same program, in 2007, debating extra credit for people who served in the military, he said, “There is no military in the world that you are actually willing to serve in because the military is a place where you still feel sleepy after enough sleep and feel hungry after eating enough.”
In 2008, he won the best debater award from MBC’s “100-minute Debate” program, marking its 400th run.
By Lee Ga-hyeok, Ser Myo-ja [myoja@joongang.co.kr]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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