Lawmakers submit Sunfull bills for positive comments

Dozens of lawmakers on Thursday submitted two “Sunfull” bills to punish hateful speech based on race or birthplace.

The idea for the bills, which are revisions of related laws, came from Min Byoung-chul, founder of Sunfull and a Konkuk University professor.

Lawmaker Ahn Hyo-dae of the ruling Saenuri Party, who is also vice chairman of the Sunfull Politics Committee of the 19th National Assembly, motioned them jointly with about 50 other lawmakers of both the ruling and opposition parties. 

The bills criminalize hateful comments based on race, place of origin and other aspects of a person’s background. Sunfull is a Korean nonprofit organization founded to counter bullying and hateful comments that are posted on the Internet. The Sunfull Movement encourages participants to post positive and thoughtful messages on websites.

“One of the bills, which revises the Basic Act on Voluntary Services, includes online as well as offline activities in the scope of voluntary services in order to foster a sound Internet culture,” Ahn said.

“Our society is multicultural, with about 1.5 million foreigners living in Korea. Some adolescents pollute cyberspace with racially or regionally discriminatory comments against people who have a multicultural background,” said Min.

“Rampant malicious replies on websites prompted me to offer the revision of related laws for social integration.”

By Chun Sung-woo (swchun@heraldcorp.com)