Newsletter Subscription


Enter your email address and start getting breaking law firm and legal news right now!



Every Alert   Alert once a day

 

South Korean Blogger Jailed Without Bail

Park Dae-sung, aka Minerva. Don't know why his face is pixelated.He goes by the username “Minerva,” after the Greek goddess of wisdom. He rose from anonymity in South Korea, for accurately predicting the current economic crisis. He even predicted the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

Now, the 31 year old Park Dae-Sung, is charged with going too far in an online discussion. He stated that the government had banned major financial institutions and trade businesses from purchasing U.S. dollars in an attempt to strengthen the local currency. Prosecutors are calling his information inaccurate and saying that it disrupted the foreign exchange market.

He was arrested last week, which sparked a debate about freedom of speech on the Internet and in South Korea.  South Korea is considered to be one of the most technologically savvy nations in the world.

Dae-Sung had regularly denounced the method by which his government handled the economy and made regular, mostly negative, predictions about the future. He is speculated to be an economic expert and his identity was hotly debated in his home country.

He has been denied bail. Dae-Sung’s lawyer said he did not intend to harm the public.

Dae-Sung could spend up to five years in prison or be fined up to 50 million won (US$36,360).

Did you like this? Share it:
Related Posts:
Posted by on January 19, 2009. Filed under Legal News,World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Leave a Reply

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>