“I came out here today to tell the victims of sexual crimes that what happened to them aren’t any of their faults.”
A female prosecutor who is currently holding her office at the Tongyoung branch of Changwon District Prosecutors’ Office publicly called for an investigation into a sexual harassment case which allegedly occurred in the judiciary.
Prosecutor Seo Ji-hyun initially made her voice heard on January 26 through the prosecution’s online internal board. In the lengthy posting titled, “I Wish,” Seo writes details of the incident.
“I was sexually harassed by Ahn Tae-geun, who later served as the director of public prosecutions, on October 30, 2010, at a funeral,” Seo writes. She continued her writing to reveal unfair treatments she received following the complaint about the incident.
According to her revelation, she was unreasonably given disciplinary warnings several times and transferred to an unusual position. She further claims that unfair treatments against her were then chief of the ministry’s criminal affairs bureau Choi Gyo-il’s attempt to cover up the sexual harassment case.
On January 29, the prosecutor also had a TV interview with JTBC’s news anchor Son Seok-hee. In the interview, Seo explains why she made a decision to raise her voice publicly.
“I haven’t thought about coming out for an interview like this until the moment when I posted on the prosecution’s internal board,” said Seo. “But people around me told that words from the victim give weight to my honesty.”
“I also came here because I really wanted to say something,” she continued. “Although I was the victim in the case, I suffered from self-accusations for the past eight years, thinking I might be the one who caused it. So I came out here today to tell the victims of sexual crimes that what happened to them aren’t any of their faults. I took me eight years to realize that.”
To Seo’s revelation, the accused retired prosecutor Ahn said can’t remember the fact relations because it was a long time ago. He further claimed that he has never been asked to apologize to Seo nor treated her unfairly.
By Heewon Kim
