SEOUL (AFP) – South Korea's Constitutional Court ruled Tuesday that a clause in a telecommunications law that was used to crack down on Internet rumourmongers is unconstitutional.
It calls for up to five years in prison and up to 50 million won (44,000 dollars) in fines for those convicted of engaging in false communications with a view to damaging the public interest.
"The concept of public interest here is too vague, failing to inform the people of exactly where the line is drawn," the court said in a statement.
The case was brought to the constitutional court by two bloggers, including one accused of causing the country huge financial losses by spreading misleading information on the economy in 2008.
Park Dae-Sung -- better known by his Internet alias "Minerva" -- was arrested in January 2009. He was accused of undermining the economy by spreading online rumours that the government had ordered local banks not to buy dollars in a bid to stabilise the won.
Prosecutors claimed the posting led to dollar hoarding, forcing the government hurriedly to inject two billion dollars to stabilise the currency market. They sought an 18-month prison term.
A criminal court which heard his case said it was hard to conclude that Park was aware the information was misleading when he wrote the postings, and acquitted him.
Park wrote more than 200 economic commentaries in the months before his arrest and gained a major following after correctly predicting the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers in September 2008.
His arrest set off a debate over freedom of speech in cyberspace in South Korea, one of the world's most wired nations.
Internet rumours fuelled street mass protests in 2008 against the lifting of a ban on US beef imports. The demonstrations later took on an anti-government flavour.
The other blogger had been jailed for 10 months for spreading false Internet rumours that police raped a demonstrator during the beef protests.
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