Arrest Unites Blacks, Korean Americans

In a rare show of solidarity, Korean American and African American leaders in Los Angeles called Monday for the release of Richard Choi, a local journalist arrested in South Korea on Dec. 19.

Choi, a popular news anchor and talk show host for Radio Korea, was arrested at his Seoul hotel and charged with malicious slander, days after broadcasting a story to Los Angeles about a reported business merger.

A spokesman for the South Korean Consulate in Los Angeles said the broadcast appears to have violated a libel law prohibiting reporting of rumors that could threaten a company’s economic stability.

Choi’s supporters said he has become a scapegoat during South Korea’s recent economic downturn.

“He is an American and above all, he is from South-Central,” said Celes King III, California chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). “We are not going to rest until he is free.”

The call for Choi’s release was the first significant action taken by Creating a Civil Society in Los Angeles, a recently formed coalition of African Americans and Korean Americans--groups often at odds, sometimes violently, in recent years.

A number of Korean merchants have been wounded or killed by African American criminals, and a Korean-born shopkeeper shot and killed Latasha Harlins, an African American teenager, in 1991. The following year, hundreds of Korean-owned businesses were destroyed in the spring riots.

Next month, the coalition plans to host a dialogue between 20 Korean Americans and 20 African Americans. It stepped into the fray over Choi’s imprisonment after it was reported in the Korean-language news media last week.

Choi, 49, had been reporting daily from Seoul, where he was covering the presidential election for radio station KBLA-AM (1580), better known as Radio Korea.

In his Dec. 15 broadcast, Choi reported on a rumored merger between the Korea Times, which publishes a Los Angeles edition, and the Hyundai Group, adding that South Korean media companies appear to have been hurt by the economic crisis. Four days later, he was charged with “false accusation”--similar to a charge of malicious slander.

“It’s just outrageous,” said Radio Korea President Janghee Lee. “It was his right to give his report.”

A representative from the American Consulate in Seoul visited Choi on Monday, although no information was available about their meeting, according to diplomatic sources.

“We believe Richard Choi’s civil rights have been violated,” said Scott Suh, associate director of Creating a Civil Society in Los Angeles.

Choi may be released if prosecutors find that he did not intend economic harm, said Changkee Sung, a spokesman for the South Korean Consulate in Los Angeles. If convicted, Choi faces up to five years in prison, his supporters said.

“His is a rare case,” Sung said. “But in this period [of] economic difficulties, that kind of rumor can . . . cause a company to go bankrupt. It is necessary to protect our society from that kind of groundless rumor.”

Sung said Choi was arrested after pressure from the Korea Times, which filed a lawsuit against him after the broadcast.

Some watchdog groups warned that Choi’s arrest could signal a disturbing trend for journalists in Asia.

“Threats of libel are increasingly used throughout Asia by business interests trying to keep at bay investigative reports,” said A. Lyn Neumann of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. “We are deeply concerned that a reporter has been arrested for doing his job.”

Choi’s daughter Jennifer, 20, who lives with her parents in Pacific Palisades, said her father is “stuck there just for speaking his mind. You just take for granted here that you can say whatever you want.”

If Choi is not released in 48 hours, his supporters said they will ask President Clinton to withhold billions of dollars in loans that the United States has pledged to help stabilize South Korea’s economy.

Choi, vice president of Radio Korea, has led efforts to promote communication between African Americans and Korean Americans in South-Central Los Angeles. Last year, he began hosting a weekly radio show called “Listening to African American Voices.”

The coalition now trying to free him, Creating a Civil Society in Los Angeles, was launched by CORE last year in an effort to repair frayed relations between the two ethnic groups.

“This gives us a chance to show the public that Korean Americans and African Americans are working together,” Suh said. “We’re not looking at Richard Choi as Korean. To us, he is just an American.”