South Korean posts resurface fabricated BBC commentary after Yoon’s impeachment

After South Korea’s Constitutional Courtroom formally eliminated former president Yoon Suk Yeol from workplace over his short-lived imposition of martial legislation, factors from a purported BBC “commentary” accusing judges of being corrupt and sympathetic to the North resurfaced on-line. However the content material doesn’t seem on the British broadcaster’s web site, and the outlet confirmed to AFP it’s fabricated.

“The British broadcaster BBC’s commentary on South Korea,” reads a Korean-language graphic shared April 9, 2025 on Facebook.

It goes on to say the BBC known as South Korea “a loopy nation that eats its personal flesh” and a “unusual nation that kills itself”.

It says the nation’s “judges and prosecutors are the primary culprits of authorized dysfunction” and accuses a Supreme Courtroom justice of promoting out the nation for 5 billion gained ($3.5 million USD).

“South Korea is a rustic ruined by biased beliefs and Juche ideology of its judges,” reads the graphic’s ultimate level.

Juche, which means self-reliance in Korean, refers back to the state ideology developed by North Korea’s late founding chief Kim Il Sung.

That similar day, a right-wing YouTuber with 970,000 subscribers echoed related claims in a video titled: “British BBC commentary: South Korea on path to failure attributable to authorized dysfunction”.

The posts surfaced after South Korea’s Constitutional Courtroom unanimously upheld the impeachment of Yoon, whose failed try and droop civilian rule in December 2024 led to political turmoil (archived link).

Yoon claimed he acted to safeguard the nation’s liberal democracy from “anti-state components” and “threats posed by North Korea”.

In a separate, ongoing prison trial, Yoon has denied rebel prices, for which he might face life in jail and even the loss of life penalty if convicted (archived link).

Related claims that the BBC criticised the nation’s judges unfold elsewhere on Facebook and X, South Korean on-line boards Naver Cafe and Naver Blog, and the web sites of NBN News Agency, Public Broadcasting System and Seoul Administration News. The purported commentary has circulated on-line since no less than 2020.

Feedback present some customers had been misled.

“The BBC commentary lays naked the complete actuality of our nation. It is humiliating,” one mentioned. One other wrote: “The BBC actually is aware of precisely.”

However keyword searches on Google, in addition to live and archived versions of the BBC’s official web site, discovered no related experiences or commentaries.

“We will say with some certainty that we did not publish this content material,” the BBC Press Workplace instructed AFP in an April 23, 2025 e-mail.

Woongbee Lee, head of BBC Korean, additionally instructed AFP the claims had “no actual foundation”.

“We confirmed that neither the Seoul bureau nor the Asia desk had ever revealed such experiences or commentaries,” he mentioned April 21.

Furthermore, the tone of the fabricated commentary doesn’t align with earlier BBC protection of Yoon’s declaration of martial legislation and subsequent impeachment.

In an April 4 explainer, the broadcaster described the courtroom’s determination to take away Yoon as a “victory for South Korea’s democracy”. It characterised his martial legislation bid as an “authoritarian energy seize” (archived link).

A report revealed December 4, 2024 referred to South Korea as a “steady, affluent democracy,” including: “But Yoon claimed he was introducing navy rule to save lots of the nation from darkish forces” (archived link).

AFP has debunked different claims stemming from Yoon’s declaration of martial legislation here.