UN criticizes Korean ruling party's push for 'fake news' bill

 

Representatives of seven media related organizations hold a press conference in front of the main building of the National Assembly, Monday, to protest the ruling party's push to revise a law to allow punitive damages on media outlets or reporters producing "fake news." The organizations view the bill as an attempt to prevent reports critical of those in positions of political and economic power. Yonhap

By Jung Da-min

The U.N. human rights body has pointed out the Korean ruling bloc's push to revise the country's media law to heavily penalize "fake news" may be in violation of an international human rights law and seriously infringe on freedom of opinion and expression.

Irene Khan, a U.N. special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of freedom of opinion and expression, delivered an open letter to the Korean government regarding concerns over the revision bill to the Act on Press Arbitration, Aug. 27. The letter was made public on the website of keonhacai Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Wednesday (KST).

The letter has come while the government and the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) are seeking to revise the law to impose punitive damages on media outlets and reporters that produce so-called "fake news." The DPK had planned to pass the bill at the National Assembly's plenary session on Aug. 30, but put it off to Sept. 27 due to strong resistance from the opposition bloc and civic groups.

In the letter, Khan said the revisions do not meet criteria to be a fair law, in terms of legality, necessity and proportionality. The U.N. special rapporteur said if the amendments are adopted at the National Assembly without further changes, they could severely restrict the rights to freedom of information and of expression of the media.

The U.N. rapporteur also reiterated the Korean government's obligation to respect and protect the rights to freedom of opinion and expression under article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), acceded to by the Korean government in April 1990.

A poster jointly made by seven media-related organizations ― Korean Association of Newspapers, Journalists Association of Korea, Korea News Editors' Association, Korea Journalists' Club, Kwanhun Club, Korea Internet Newspaper Association and Korea Woman Journalists Association ― to protest the ruling Democratic Party of Korea's push to revise a law allowing punitive damages on media outlets or reporters producing "fake news." The organizations view the bill as an attempt to prevent reporting critical of those in political and economic power.

"Article 19 protects everyone's right to opinion without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers and through any media," the letter read. "In particular, I want to stress that, under international human rights law, the prohibition of false information is not in itself a legitimate aim to restrict freedom of expression. In effect, people have the right to express ill-founded opinions or statements and indulge in parody or satire if they so wish."

Khan said any limitation to disinformation must establish a close and concrete connection to the protection of one of the legitimate aims stated in ICCPR, such as respecting the rights and reputations of others and protecting national security, public order and public health or morals, but such a direct relationship seems absent in the law drafted by the DPK.

She also said there is a concern that reporters could self-censor what they write to avoid what she said are "excessive" punitive damages when they should be in a position to freely criticize powerful figures, especially at this politically critical time as the country's next presidential election is set to be held in March next year.