An Woo-jin, 23, is one of the top pitchers in South Korea. In 2022, he led the Korean Baseball Organization, the country’s premier league, in average running earn and strike. But the KBO did not invite him to compete in the World Baseball Classics, an international league featuring the baseball stars of the Baseball League that begins next week.
The KBO said it had excluded Mr. An, who was anonymously accused of assaulting his teammate while in high school, as they considered him a liability. He not considered last year for an award given to the KBO’s best pitcher for those accusations.
No charges have been filed, and Mr An has said reports of bullying, which he apologized at the time, were exaggerated. However, many Koreans, including baseball fans, have said that they support his exclusion.
Over the past two decades, public accusations of bullying and school violence have increasingly played a prominent role in Korean culture — Netflix even had a hit show on the subject, “Glory.” Entertainment companies test prospective pop stars for evidence of their past bullying.
Last week, President Yoon Suk Yeol withdrew his appointment of Jung Soon-shin as Chief of the National Bureau of Investigation in response to reports that Mr. Jung’s son had verbally harassed a high school classmate last week. 2017 and Mr. Jung defended him instead of blaming him.
Jihoon Kim, a criminologist at the University of Alabama who has studied bullying in South Korea, said many South Koreans believe bullies have irreversibly ruined the lives of their victims. “The idea of ruining a bully’s career is not seen as problematic, as they are seen as deserving of it,” he said.
The takedown of alleged bullies remains widespread, despite concerns about accountability and credibility, as in many cases the allegations are anonymous. Critics also question whether the harm to reputation is proportionate to the offence.
A national conversation around school bullying began to form in the 1990s, after a number of such abused teenagers died by suicide. Jun Sung Hong, a professor of social work at Wayne State University who has written about bullying, said the 2004 bullying prevention law was seen by many as a moment of consideration, but the situation lacked seriousness. The emphasis on mental health services for bullies and their victims continues. Korea.
Penalties for bullying in South Korea tend to be less severe than in the United States. Noh Yoon Ho, a lawyer in Seoul who has counseled bullying victims, said there, school harassment is often the basis for suspension or expulsion, while many schools in South Korea only community service or ban applies.
However, Ms. Noh said, an increasing number of victims and bystanders are reporting on school bullying and that institutional mechanisms for doing so have improved. In a government survey, 91% of those who said they were bullied last year reported it, compared with 78% in 2014.
As people bring up old bullying allegations, some have identified public figures, including athletes and entertainers, as perpetrators.
In 2021, two professional volleyball players, twin sisters Lee Jae-yeong and Lee Da-yeong, then 24, were kicked out of the South Korean club after they admitted to insulting their teammates. I’m in middle school. That led to a flurry of accusations of bullying against other athletes, and then-President Moon Jae-in asked the Culture Ministry to “make special efforts to clear up the problem.”
Last year, Hybe, the company behind boy band BTS, deported Kim Garam from the newly formed girl group Le Sserafim, after anonymous accusers said the singer had verbally abused them. Hybe threatened to sue her accusers for defamation, but then terminate the contract with Ms. Kim after a law firm representing one of the accusers threatened to make the evidence public.
Ms Noh said victims may choose to remain anonymous for fear that public accusations could prompt former bullies or their allies to retaliate. But some of the anonymous accusations circulating in the South Korean media are less than they seem.
After comedian Hong Hyun-hee was accused two years ago in an online post of bullying, her former classmates denied the allegation and she filed a defamation lawsuit. The person who denounced her later withdraw and apologize Ms. Hong’s agency said she suffered from “memory loss”.
Other critics say the takedown may be too punitive. Case in point: pitcher, An Woo-jin.
An’s troubles began in 2017, when a TV station report that he assaulted the younger players on his high school team.
Police determined that An, then 17, hit three younger students in the head with a baseball, cell phone and belt buckle, and the fourth student hit the shins with a stick, according to police. police records provided by his attorney. After the students decided not to press charges, saying that Mr. An’s conduct was not serious, prosecutors dropped the case.
The charges against An, a 6-foot-3 right-hander who threw the ball as fast as 99 miles per hour, did not stop him from turning pro that same year. Heroes Kiwoom signed him for 600 million won, or about $470,000. No new allegations of bullying emerged.
But the claims continue to cast a shadow over his career.
In 2017, the Korean Baseball Softball Association, the governing body for their national teams, banned him from participating in the Olympics and Asian Games. In January, the Korean Baseball Organization, which selects teams for World Classic Baseballsaid he will not be participating in the tournament that begins on Tuesday.
The organization’s spokesman, Lee Kyong-ho, said in an interview that the team was selected with the goal of “symbolic meaning, responsibility and the cost of representing the country”. . “Is it right to select players based solely on their skills?”
Fueling public anger was the perception that the penalties imposed by Mr. An’s high school — five hours of volunteer work and a written apology — were too light. But Mr An’s lawyer, Baek Sung-moon, said in an interview that the decision to ban him from international tournaments was clearly based on the impression that his bullying behavior was more severe than what was approved. report.
He had a hard time being seen as some kind of school bully demon, he added.
Mr. An’s defenders include Shin-Soo Choo, a midfielder who played 16 years in majors and currently playing in KBO Last month he said that “Koreans don’t seem to forgive easily.”
“He repented of his mistake, was punished and suspended from tournaments,” said Mr. Choo. told a Korean radio station in Dallas, adding that An’s talent could make him “the next Chan Ho Park,” an All-Star pitcher who was the first MLB player born in Korea.
But many critics of An have questioned Mr. Choo’s efforts to defend him. Among them was Mr. Park himself, who retired from baseball in 2012.
“An Woo-jin’s removal from the WBC national team is a reflection of the times,” he told reporters during a visit to the Heroes’ spring training camp in Scottsdale, Ariz.
“I told him not to be too upset,” he added.
