131.
The Republic of Korea has been experiencing a social issue where
people make online and offline comments that demean and insult others
based on their gender, age, disability, country of origin, ethnicity, or sexual
orientation, including hateful comments toward Yemeni asylum seekers on
Jeju Island in 2018. At the UN Human Rights Council’s third Universal
Periodic Review (UPR) of Republic of Korea in 2017, the need for the
government’s sustained efforts to prevent hatred toward sexual minorities
and the disabled was also mentioned.
132.
According to the Survey on Public Perception of Hatred and
Discrimination conducted in 2019 by the NHRCK, 64.2% of the survey
respondents 25 experienced hatful expressions. 77.2% said that Korean
society discriminates against sexual minorities. The percentages were 76.6%,
72.1%, and 71.6% against mentally disabled people, physically disabled
people, and migrant workers, respectively. Meanwhile, the NHRCK
recommended to National Assembly Speaker to urge not to use demeaning
or discriminatory expressions toward the disabled and to draw up recurrence
prevention measures.
133.
The 2019 analysis of defamation and contempt rulings under the Act
on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and
Information Protection, Etc. showed that hateful expressions accounted for
33.5% of malicious comments that were put on trial, an increase from 31.6%
announced by Korean Institute of Criminology based on its study of cyber
slander rulings between 2016 and 2017. Among them, hatred toward gender
took up 73.3% while hatred toward the disabled was 23.3%. However, the
average fine for a comment using hateful expressions was KRW 550,000,
which was lower than KRW 1.6 million for false information and KRW
25 1,200 men and women aged 19 and older residing in Korea.
45