American blogger ZenKimchi being sued for libel after posting about his old job.

[Brian]

Take a few minutes to read the article about the blogger ZenKimchi---who has been quoted by the New York Times in their pieces on Korean food---who posted about his experiences with a former employer.  He took grievances to the Labor Board, which ruled he was owed 6 million won.  In civil court that amount was bumped up to 8 million.  He hasn't seen any of that money yet, and now he's in trouble for naming his employer on this blog.  This excerpt from the Korea Herald piece is very jarring:

Essentially, the terms of Article 309 of the Korea Criminal Code say that writing something that can hurt the reputation of another, irregardless of whether or not it is true, can leave the writer/publisher open to prosecution.

Here's the KH piece: https://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2007/05/09/200705090020.asp

Here's a post on Scribblings of the Metropolitican blog: http://metropolitician.blogs.com/scribblings_of_the_metrop/2007/05/help_liable_for.html

Here's the thread on Dave's: http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?t=86084&highlight=ZenKimchi

[Arsalan]

I get really upset everytime I read about it.  There's no emoticon for what I want to do to that hagwon owner.

A few months ago I also removed my excessively negative, and defaming blogs--for a completely different reason however.

[Samuel]

It is very upsetting. Insane libel law. If the statement is true, why should he be punished? I can't see that law being enforced against Zenkimchi. There are plenty of scandals in Korea, like Dr.Hwang, or the current one about the head of some large Korean company, that hired some mobsters to beat the crap out of some guy that won a fair fight against the head's son. I am curious to see what will happen with Zenkimchi. It does make one feel powerless as an ESL teacher in Korea.