An ally’s prisoner

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MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Thursday the 16th of July.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

First up: holding pattern.

Last year, former U.S. Ambassador Morse Tan spoke out against South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, a highly controversial public figure. Now Tan’s being investigated for criminal defamation charges. WORLD’s Jenny Rough reports.

JENNY ROUGH: Morse Tan is stuck in South Korea.

MORSE TAN: In essence I’m being jailed. I cannot leave the confines of South Korea.

The former U.S. ambassador has not been able to return to the United States and to his wife and four kids after South Korea imposed a travel exit ban on him.

MORSE TAN: I am not giving out my specific location due to security concerns.

He’ll step out of hiding to give speeches or buy a cup of coffee, but only with a security detail. And he enters and exits his car quickly.

Tan’s ordeal started last year while speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. He referenced a violent crime that has been connected to South Korea’s president from his youth.

TAN: We’re talking about gang rape, we’re talking about murder against a sixth grade girl. And because of this, it’s reported, he was put in juvenile detention and therefore was not able to attend and graduate from junior high and high school.

The president denies those allegations. He says he had to drop out of middle school to get a job to support his poor family. But at the press conference, a reporter asked Tan about the claims.

TAN: I just said that it had been reported Lee Jae Myung, how it was reported that he had committed serious crimes in his youth. And made the statement in a very straight-forward, factual way.

On May 28th, Tan traveled to South Korea. The Seoul Metropolitan Police were waiting. They did not arrest him… but he’s now facing an investigation for criminal defamation.

In most constitutional democracies, defamation is not a crime. It’s a civil wrong someone can be liable for, not criminally sentenced for.

A judge has twice denied Tan’s request to lift the ban, saying if Tan left the country it would be harder to investigate the defamation charges. In one appearance, Tan was allowed to speak. He brought up the U.S. case New York Times versus Sullivan.

TAN: The standard is actual malice. Which means you had to have made the statement with reckless disregard for the truth. At the core of free speech is political speech. It’s protected by the First Amendment. I did this on U.S. soil, as a U.S. citizen, and as a former ambassador of President Trump.

He adds that even under Korean law, if he spoke in the public interest and the facts are true, the country’s law should protect him. Plus:

TAN: Korea has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. And free speech, freedom of expression is explicitly protected.

Tan says as allies, Korea and the U.S. shouldn’t punish the political speech of its former senior diplomats. Still, he notes that what’s happening to him is symptomatic of what’s happening in South Korea in general.

TAN: Where you have a suppression of free speech, where you have a muzzling of free expression. Where you have had unprecedented raids on churches and pastors being jailed. Where you have the ongoing communization of South Korea. Who would have imagined there is a possibility that there could be a communist reunification of the Koreas via South Korea? I think many people thought that was unthinkable. And yet that’s exactly what’s being attempted right now.

Others agree. Tara O. of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation recently testified before Congress that while South Korea used to be a refuge for those seeking freedom…

YOUTUBE TARA O: There are more and more restrictions. The measures to suppress freedom are being codified into law and now they’re trying to change the constitution. All these changes show a move away from freedom-based democracy and market economy to socialism. It’s about taking the choices and decision-making away from individuals and concentrating them centrally in the government. The state makes all the decisions just like in North Korea. There, the state determines where you live, where you work, whether you go to college or not, whether you can attend a funeral in another city, or not. We call this totalitarianism.

More Koreans are becoming concerned, and gathering in protest. Tan often joins Christians at Seoul’s Olympic Park for a worship service. He says the Lord has been sustaining him.

TAN: I am not ashamed to say I’m utterly dependent on Him. Not to say I don’t struggle at times and pour our Psalm-like prayers to the Lord. I’m human but I’ve mostly been in His peace that passes understanding.

Tan’s next court appearance is July 22nd.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Jenny Rough.

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