Ministry of Foreign Affairs of South Korea told AFP that the government was not involved in a criminal complaint filed by local NGOs against Israeli officials, contrary to a news image shared by social media users around the world. The image, which shows a photo of Chairman Yoon Suk Yeol and falsely claimed that Seoul had filed a lawsuit against Israeli leaders for crimes against humanity, was shared against the backdrop of the ongoing war in Gaza and continued international criticism over high civilian casualties.
“South Korea files lawsuit against Israeli leaders for crimes against humanity,” reads the text on a news image shared on Facebook on June 24, 2024.
The image shows South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol with the country’s flag behind him.
At the bottom of the image were printed the website and social media accounts of the American news site MintPress Newswho previously shared misleading content that was debunked by AFP here.
The image was originally posted by MintPress News on its verified Facebook page on June 24, and the next day on his Instagram And X accounts.
The captions on the images read: “South Korea has taken the unprecedented step of filing lawsuits against 7 Israeli leaders for crimes against humanity,” and claimed that the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was one of the officials targeted in the “shocking action.”
The same image was also uploaded on Instagram And Xwhere it was shared more than 9,000 times.
Similar claims were also made on Facebook, X, Wiresand in a report by the Lebanese broadcaster MTVas well as in a headline from an Israel-based news outlet Ynet News.
The claims circulated amid the ongoing war in Gaza, which was triggered by the unprecedented attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel on October 7, which killed 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
The militants also captured 251 hostages, 116 of whom are still in Gaza. According to the Israeli military, 42 are dead.
Israel responded with a military offensive that killed at least 38,980 people, mostly civilians, in Hamas-ruled Gaza, according to Health Ministry figures.
On May 20, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague filed a request arrest warrants against Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and key Hamas leaders for alleged war crimes.
The ICC judges will decide whether the application meets the threshold for formally issuing the orders. The ICC’s 124 member states will ultimately decide whether to execute the orders.
However, South Korea has not filed a lawsuit against Israeli leaders.
‘Government not involved’
Search keywords on Google led to a report in South Korea Kyunghyang Shinmun newspaper reported on May 9 that two NGOs had filed a criminal complaint with the police against seven Israeli officials (archived link).
The seven officials are the same as those named in the MintPress News report.
According to the Kyunghyang Shinmun reportThe complainants – People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD) and Asian Dignity Initiative – collected more than 5,000 signatures in support of their action.
The file was also covered by the Yonhap News Agency (archived link).
The PSPD has posted about the complaint on its websiteand said their complaint was filed under South Korea’s Criminal Punishment Act, which falls under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (archived link).
Lee Young-ah of the PSPD’s Center for Peace and Disarmament told AFP on July 18 that their complaint “aims to broadly expose those responsible for the war crimes” in Gaza, even though South Korean police may not have the resources to jurisdiction check (archived link).
A South Korean Foreign Ministry representative described the claims to AFP as the result of “misreport“.
They said “the South Korean government was not involved” in filing the criminal complaint.
