Independent Rep. Han Dong-hoon said he would pursue civil and criminal action against the Democratic Party of Korea, accusing it of "spreading falsehoods about my child, who has nothing to do with this, as political revenge."
In a Facebook post on the 12th, Han said his child and fellow volunteers from an organization taught English remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. "Around June 2022, MBC reported that volunteer records had been filled out in advance at a welfare facility, and police investigated after a complaint was filed by a civic group," he wrote. "Police concluded there were no grounds for charges, finding that the volunteer work had been carried out consistently and that there was no forgery or false entry." He also attached the police decision not to refer the case to prosecutors.
Han added that the case had been reviewed twice by investigation review committees after the complainant filed objections, and that both times the conclusion was that no charges were warranted. "The parents of the children who received free online English lessons directly from my child and the other volunteers also confirmed that the English volunteer work actually took place," he said.
Han said the allegations raised by the ruling bloc were "purely political revenge" for his criticism of Justice Minister Kim Seung-won's alleged misconduct, his efforts to push back against what he called delays in the investigation into a landmine attack in the DMZ, and his questioning of what he described as a fabricated investigation involving former President Roh Moo-hyun. "What reason other than political revenge could there be for them suddenly ganging up like this?" he said.
He said that despite what he called the party's "despicable political revenge" timed to his absence for a parliamentary audit trip to the United States, he would thoroughly question officials at Korea's embassy in Washington during the parliamentary audit the following day about the state of Korea-U.S. relations and ways to improve them.
Earlier, Rep. Kang Deuk-gu of the Democratic Party of Korea held a news conference questioning volunteer work that Han's daughter was reported to have performed at a community child center in Anyang, Gyeonggi Province, for one year and eight months beginning in September 2020.
"According to materials submitted to the National Assembly, Han's daughter did not sign the volunteer logs," Kang said. "She coordinated schedules and provided support so that volunteers could conduct classes remotely. She did not do volunteer work teaching classes herself."
Kang also said the Anyang Volunteer Center had canceled the child center's registration as a volunteer placement site over false entry of service records. "All the volunteer center asked for was a single piece of evidence showing that the volunteer work had been done, and that document never came," he said.
Han rejected that account, saying that both police and city officials had investigated at the time. "They concluded that there was no false entry or forgery but that the child center had managed records poorly, and the center's designation as a placement site was canceled on that basis," he said. "City officials had inserted the phrase 'false entry of service records' into a document, which was inaccurate. The child center explained that it was not true — that the volunteer work was real — and that explanation was accepted, so it was corrected to poor record management."