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Head of 'comfort women' shelter in S. Korea found dead
Head of 'comfort women' shelter in S. Korea found dead
June 7, 2020 (Mainichi Japan)
SEOUL (Kyodo) -- The head of a South Korean shelter for so-called comfort women run by an organization being investigated for alleged accounting irregularities has been found dead in an apparent suicide, Yonhap News Agency reported Sunday.
The 60-year-old woman was found dead Saturday in her apartment north of Seoul and homicide is not suspected, police were quoted as saying.
As part of their investigation of the nongovernmental organization named the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance, prosecutors last month raided the shelter, as well as its office and its affiliated museum.
The woman reportedly told those close to her that she was going through a hard time after the prosecution raid, according to the report.
Yoon Mi Hyang, the prominent former head of the KCJR who was in April elected to the National Assembly, is suspected of embezzling donations to the group. Both Yoon and the organization have denied the allegations.
The 60-year-old woman was found dead Saturday in her apartment north of Seoul and homicide is not suspected, police were quoted as saying.
As part of their investigation of the nongovernmental organization named the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance, prosecutors last month raided the shelter, as well as its office and its affiliated museum.
The woman reportedly told those close to her that she was going through a hard time after the prosecution raid, according to the report.
Yoon Mi Hyang, the prominent former head of the KCJR who was in April elected to the National Assembly, is suspected of embezzling donations to the group. Both Yoon and the organization have denied the allegations.
More:
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20200607/p2g/00m/0in/070000c
Ex-comfort woman decries 'betrayal' in South Korea activist scandal
ByElizabeth Shim May 25
May 25 (UPI) -- The former South Korean comfort woman who accused an activist of misappropriating funds said Monday she had been "betrayed overnight" after being "used" by lawmaker-elect Yoon Mi-hyang for three decades.
Lee Yong-soo, 91, said Monday at a press conference in the South Korean city of Daegu her relationship with Yoon began in June 1992, Yonhap reported.
Yoon had requested former comfort women who had come forward at the time to gather at a church, where, according to Lee, Yoon distributed about $1,000 in cash to each woman.
According to Lee, Yoon claimed the money was from a retired teacher in Japan. Lee also said she had no idea how Yoon handled cash as Yoon grew her organization, presently known as the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery...
Lee Yong-soo, 91, said Monday at a press conference in the South Korean city of Daegu her relationship with Yoon began in June 1992, Yonhap reported.
Yoon had requested former comfort women who had come forward at the time to gather at a church, where, according to Lee, Yoon distributed about $1,000 in cash to each woman.
According to Lee, Yoon claimed the money was from a retired teacher in Japan. Lee also said she had no idea how Yoon handled cash as Yoon grew her organization, presently known as the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance for the Issues of Military Sexual Slavery...
More at the link
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2020/05/25/Ex-comfort-woman-decries-betrayal-in-South-Korea-activist-scandal/9441590406683/
Lee Yong-soo's statements such as they are reported in the UPI story, seem to be very vague. They confuse the issues of the origins of funding, and the controversial 2015 "settlement" with Japan conducted by the now discredited Park Geun-hye administration, with the fuzzy allegations of financial improprieties which the government investigation is seeking to substantiate. Critics on the left have observed that the investigation appears to be politically motivated by the right wing Supreme Prosecutors Office, following a now recognized pattern of unsupported defamatory statements spread widely in the media, which the prosecution later seeks to bolster with coached testimony obtained by coercion or promises of favorable treatment when objective evidence fails to substantiate their cases.
Representative Yoon's prosecution resembles the political prosecutions of former South Korean Prime Minister and representative, Han Myung-sook; the former Minister of Justice, Cho Guk and his family members; and the botched attempt to prosecute the current director of the No Moo-hyun foundation, Yoo Shi-min. The prosecution's investigation into Rep. Yoon and the Justice Remembrance Council is regarded as serving right wing pro-Japanese interests in South Korea, in an escalation of the continuing power struggle between Supreme Proscutor Yoon Seok-yeol and the increasingly powerful Democratic Party of Moon Jae-in. Critics on the left in South Korea have alleged the investigation by prosecutors is proceeding upon vague unsupported allegations, and improper investigative techniques, including leaking allegations to the press, libeling the reputation of the director and her organization. The prosecutor's office is now denying the investigation played any role in the death of the Paju's center director.
It's interesting that the Maainchi refers to the young women taken into custody by the armed Japanese soldiers and brought to the far corners of Asia to be sexually abused a hundred times a day, and then thrown into ditches and mass murdered when Allied soldiers were closing in, as "recruits."
