ID :
204926
Fri, 09/02/2011 - 16:41
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://oananews.org//node/204926
The shortlink copeid
Highest court clears 5 MBC workers over U.S. beef repor
SEOUL, Sept. 2 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's highest court on Friday cleared five journalists from the national TV broadcaster MBC of defamation charges related to their controversial report critical of the Lee Myung-bak administration's decision to resume U.S. beef imports in 2008, upholding lower courts' decisions.
The four producers and one script writer of MBC's investigative program "PD Notebook" were accused of defaming Cabinet ministers who allowed the resumption of American beef imports by exaggerating the danger of ingesting the beef in an April 2008 episode of the program.
The episode, which the prosecution saw as malicious, mainly dwelled on how U.S. beef could cause the human form of mad cow disease, or variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), and local negotiators' excessive tolerance for imports of specified risk materials like cattle spinal columns and brains, believed to contain infectious proteins.
A district court acquitted the five of the defamation charges, saying the episode did not seem to contain false information. An appeals court upheld the not-guilty verdict, recognizing that the defendants did not deliberately defame the officials, although the program contained exaggerations and distortions regarding the threat of mad cow disease associated with U.S. beef.
Aired months after the Lee government signed a deal with Washington to resume halted imports of U.S. beef and impose much lighter restrictions on such inbound shipments, the program sparked weeks of street protests throughout the summer of that year, forcing the government to back off and renegotiate detailed terms of the import resumption deal.
Imports of American beef had been suspended since 2003 after a case of mad cow disease was confirmed at a U.S. cattle farm. After taking office in February 2008, Lee struck a deal to restart imports with the U.S. in hopes of encouraging Washington to ratify the free trade agreement with Seoul.
pbr@yna.co.kr
The four producers and one script writer of MBC's investigative program "PD Notebook" were accused of defaming Cabinet ministers who allowed the resumption of American beef imports by exaggerating the danger of ingesting the beef in an April 2008 episode of the program.
The episode, which the prosecution saw as malicious, mainly dwelled on how U.S. beef could cause the human form of mad cow disease, or variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), and local negotiators' excessive tolerance for imports of specified risk materials like cattle spinal columns and brains, believed to contain infectious proteins.
A district court acquitted the five of the defamation charges, saying the episode did not seem to contain false information. An appeals court upheld the not-guilty verdict, recognizing that the defendants did not deliberately defame the officials, although the program contained exaggerations and distortions regarding the threat of mad cow disease associated with U.S. beef.
Aired months after the Lee government signed a deal with Washington to resume halted imports of U.S. beef and impose much lighter restrictions on such inbound shipments, the program sparked weeks of street protests throughout the summer of that year, forcing the government to back off and renegotiate detailed terms of the import resumption deal.
Imports of American beef had been suspended since 2003 after a case of mad cow disease was confirmed at a U.S. cattle farm. After taking office in February 2008, Lee struck a deal to restart imports with the U.S. in hopes of encouraging Washington to ratify the free trade agreement with Seoul.
pbr@yna.co.kr
