K-pop sex-and-drugs nightclub scandal: few arrests and women’s groups in South Korea are furious
- Coalition of South Korean women’s rights groups condemn the results of police investigation of Burning Sun nightclub, singer Seungri, and bribery of officer
- ‘If these kinds of investigations continue to be the norm, Korea will be nothing more than a kingdom of rape,’ says Green Party’s former Seoul mayor candidate
By Lee Suh-yoon
Three months after South Korean police launched an investigation into alleged rapes and drug use at Seoul’s infamous Burning Sun nightclub and the ties between police officers and the club owners, justice has still to be done, women’s groups say.
Almost none of the key players in what the groups refer to as the country’s “rape business cartel” were held accountable when the results of the investigations were announced last week.
Only K-pop star Jung Joon-young, who left clear digital evidence that he shared secretly recorded sex videos in mobile chat rooms, and a couple of Burning Sun staff members who were involved in a physical assault on a male customer who first raised suspicions of collusion with police, came under scrutiny.
The scandal started when a club customer accused the managers of Burning Sun of attacking him last November. Allegations then surfaced that managers of the club drugged female customers with a date-rape drug; that Seungri, a member of K-pop boy band BigBang and a director of the club, provided prostitution services to investors; and that a senior police superintendent surnamed Yoon had been paid to protect the stars.
