The scandal involving Shin Gi-nam's father's erupted on Monday when a monthly magazine claimed that Shin Sang-mook had voluntarily enlisted in the Japanese Imperial Army and adopted a Japanese name. Even as the media hounds closed in on Shin Ki-nam, the Uri Party lawmaker responded with a flat denial. His father, he insisted, had been a teacher during Japanese colonial rule. But Mr Shin's protests were blown away the following day when a local newspaper published interviews with former freedom fighters who claimed they had suffered directly at the hands of his father. 'Shin Sang-mook personally tortured me for a month in 1943 after I was arrested for assisting pro-independence movements,' said Kim Jang-ryong, a 78-year-old doctor living in Pusan. Cha Ik-hwan, 79, another alleged victim, said he was tortured by Shin for two months and still suffered the effects of his beating. Throughout the storm over the pro-Japanese activities of Mr Shin's father, local media outlets have mostly insisted that the sins of the father should not be visited on the son. Rather, they claim to be angry at the lawmaker's attempts to conceal the facts. 'Condemning Mr Shin by revealing his father's past is failing to see the true nature of this incident. Why are we reviving the inhumane guilt-by-association system?' asked the conservative Joongang Ilbo. 'The substance of this incident is that Mr Shin, as a political leader, has lied.' The elder Shin died in 1984.