Park Won-soon suicide: Calls for independent investigation as Seoul mayor’s allies try to preserve his liberal legacy

Women’s rights advocates say city authorities cannot conduct an impartial investigation given Park held the office of mayor for nearly a decade. Donald Kirk reports

A mourner walks by a memorial altar for Park in Seoul (AP)

South Korean women’s groups are calling for an independent investigation into the private life of the reform-minded Seoul mayor Park Won-soon, the victim of a mysterious suicide after his former secretary accused him of persistently trying to lure her into the private bedroom off his city hall office.

The charges filed by the secretary were formally dropped after his death on 9 July and non-governmental groups accuse South Korea’s left-wing administration of covering up the real facts of his death and his role as a one-time liberal contender in the country’s next presidential election in 2022.

Lee Mi-kyoung, director of the Korea Sexual Violence Relief Centre, called this week for South Korea’s national human rights commission to take over the investigation into charges that the 64-year-old Park bullied not only his former secretary but also other women on his staff at Seoul’s city hall.

Advocates for the rights of women in South Korea’s male-chauvinist society said city authorities were totally unqualified to conduct an impartial investigation considering that Park had been elected a record three times as mayor and had held the office for nearly a decade.

Kim Jae-ryun, the lawyer for the former secretary, whose name was not revealed, said that she had raised the issue of harassment at least 17 times while working for him and three more times after she changed jobs in city hall. Among those to whom she complained were senior officials, said the lawyer, including bureaucrats in the human resources office who “should have notified people with more responsibility”.

South Korea’s president Moon Jae-in, closely allied to the late mayor as leader of the ruling party, has been noticeably silent on the whole topic. Belatedly, on Thursday, a spokesperson for the Blue House – the seat of presidential power – offered “words of comfort to the victim” but carefully avoided placing blame. Proclaiming “a firm stance” against sexual harassment by officials, he said the Blue House was “awaiting the outcome” of the investigation.

The former secretary, going public with all but her name, has recounted harrowing experiences at the hands of the mayor. She said that finally “I mustered my courage to submit the complaints” to the police on 7 July, after which she was “questioned all night long”. She has said she should have “screamed, cried and reported him when it first happened”.

Two days later, as the story of Park’s pursuit of the secretary was about to be revealed in the Korean media, Park called his office, cancelling all his appointments and not showing up at work. His daughter called police after discovering his last words scrawled on a piece of paper in which he is said to have apologised “to everyone”, particularly to “my family to whom I have given much pain”.

The mystery deepened over the hours while drones flew overhead and sniffer dogs roamed the high hills beyond his residence until finally one of the dogs led searchers to his body. It’s still not been revealed, however, how he took his own life.

“They just don’t know what happened to him,” said Jang Sung-eun, a teacher in Seoul. “Probably he hanged himself, but they are keeping it a secret.”

The gap in information has spawned popular conspiracy theories. “He may not have been alone,” said Maeng Ju-seok, a political activist. “Someone else may have been involved in his death.”

The case has proved all the more shocking to South Korean society considering Park had staked his reputation on defending the rights of workers, encouraging small and medium enterprises against the chaebol or conglomerates that dominate the Korean economy – and even took credit as a lawyer 22 years ago for having won Korea’s first sexual harassment conviction on behalf of a teaching assistant at a university.

Now women’s advocates fear the cover-up may extend to his relationships with women, not just the secretary who brought the charges but also to others in city hall. The case “goes beyond issues personally related to Park”, said the Korea Sexual Violence Relief Centre at a press conference on Wednesday, calling it “an organised crime that was sustained by power”.

Park’s old friends in city hall insisted on a full state funeral lasting five days while critics said a private family funeral would have been appropriate considering the charges against him.

But Park’s political allies, having got the secretary’s charges formally dropped, are still unlikely to block a full police investigation into his private life. The police now say they have uncovered the codes of his personal cellphone and are looking into his personal messages and selfies that he insisted on taking with the ex-secretary and others.

“We will sort out materials and continue our probe,” said a police official, citing “digital forensic procedures, including unlocking his mobile phone”.

The investigation marks the final chapter of a self-styled idealist – his critics might say ideologue – who as an anti-government activist in his youth was expelled from Seoul National University and jailed for four months. After graduating from a lesser institution, he studied law, passed the bar exam and was a founding member of the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, an NGO advocating reform of South Korea’s capitalist system.

In an interview with this journalist nearly four years ago, Park said his ambition was for Seoul to emerge as an “economic democratisation city”. He acknowledged that he was “progressive” but argued that “anti-trust policies” as observed in the US and Britain could “really help start-ups”.

Closing the gaps was “essential in providing hope to those who are hard-working”, he said, calling for “policies that help reduce the gap in our society”. He denied that he was a socialist, saying basically that he believed “a practical approach is most important”.