Though this incident took place on November 24, 2018, it wasn’t until January 28, 2019 that it was brought into the public eye.
It was on this day that MBC Newsdesk ( the main nightly newscast of the Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation) reported on an alleged assault on a clubgoer, 29 year old Kim Sang-kyo, at the Burning Sun nightclub.
At the time of the incident, Kim claims to have been helping a woman who he says seemed to have been sexually harassed, as well as drugged, within the space of the Burning Sun club. “The woman hid behind me. She seemed to have been sexually harassed. She held my shoulders…”
Like any concerned citizen, Kim flagged down some of the club’s staff to try and get help for the woman. However, instead of assistance, Kim instead says “…and when I tried to ask for help from the club’s bodyguards, the club executive and guards started beating me up.” Kim says that the assault by the club staff was so severe that it left him with broken ribs and heavy bleeding. When the police finally arrived, all Kim felt was relief and rushed out to meet them and direct the officers to the club staff who was assaulting him.
However, it did not go as Kim expected.
It was to his horror that instead of assisting him, Kim was instead getting beaten by the officers on the scene, adding onto the already horrible injuries he had accumulated from the club staff. Kim was confused and tried to tell the officers that he was the one who called the police and tried to bring attention to the club’s staff and the woman who he said was drugged.
It was to no avail however. After the police were done with Kim, it was then that the officers on scene handcuffed him and booked him with several charges after taking the injured man to the police station. Kim Sang-kyo on seven charges in total, including criminal battery, indecency, obstruction of police duties and defamation against the Burning Sun club.
In released surveillance footage from a patrol car and the police station, Kim is depicted as being beaten by police officers and bleeding quite badly. However, the police have denied any claims of assault and claim that Kim’s bleeding nose was instead the result of a fall.
Angered by the injustice of this incident, and wanting to bring light of this corruption, Kim Sang-kyo went on the Cheong Wa Dae (“The Blue House”) official website (the Cheong Wa Dae being the South Korean equivalent to the White House) and posted a petition regarding Club Burning Sun and included details of his assault. The petition by Kim Sang-kyo also leveled allegations against Club Burning Sun regarding the drugging of women by club staffers and a corrupt relationship between the police and the club.
This issue was further compounded by a CCTV video uploaded by Mr. Kim from the club, which has sparked even more controversy and turned a public spotlight onto Burning Sun. It includes a woman stumbling as she’s dragged through a club hallway, and there’s been a lot of speculation about what’s going on in the video. It was uploaded on YouTube on December 27 of last year.
Mr. Kim described, “Less than 10 days after my incident occurred on November 24, a woman who was intoxicated by something was dragged by her hair by a Burning Sun guard down a VIP hall. The woman grabbed on to the computer and desk and seemed to be in need of help, but the staff ignored that. I received information that the woman reported this to the police, but the police let it pass and Burning Sun deleted the CCTV [footage].”
He went on to say that he heard similar incidents happen twice a day, and that the police receive a large amount of money from Burning Sun, with the police and Burning Sun having an agreement where they do not enter the club on the pretext that they are a business disturbance.
With the inclusion of the video, and the fact that the petition posted by Kim has since gained over 200,000 signatures, an official investigation into the affairs of Club Burning Sun has been sanctioned and will be conducted to get to the bottom of this incident. Since then, even more petitions have arisen for an expansion of investigation into other nightclubs in the Gangnam area.
Now, if that were the end of it, then the ethical issue would be, while horrific and a terrible sight to behold, quite straightforward and easy for Club Burning Sun and the people in charge to deal with. However, as like most cases, this is not the end. And as the investigation into these allegations of drugs, rape, and misconduct continue, horrifying twists and turns would be revealed.
Twists and turns that would have farther reacher consequences for all those involved, and for the entertainment industry of South Korea as a whole.
Sources:
- https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ikrd/seungri-big-bang-sex-scandal-south-korea
- https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2019/02/251_262964.html
- http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20190130000544
- http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2018/11/23/2018112301418.html
- https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2019/02/251_263889.html
- https://www.soompi.com/article/1300134wpp/burning-sun-club-issues-statements-in-response-to-controversies
The Burning Sun Scandal 
Bribery between this company and the police seems even more scandalous than a normal corporate dilemma. The scope of this scandal seems to be broader than I would have imagined, in most cases I would not have thought that the police would be bribed to the point where they would take such harsh actions and turn the situation around on Kim like that.
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I completely agree. And the fact of the matter is that police bribery is something of an issue in South Korea. While it is generally looked down upon, as like in most other places, it still occurs with enough frequency that people somewhat become desensitized to the issue. As for how broad the issue is…you are absolutely right. The implications of this case go beyond affecting just a single company in terms of ethics, but an entire industry (and even nation) as a whole. I hope to convey the scope of this issue with my following posts.
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I remember that this scandal has had a great impact, and there are also many reports on Chinese websites. This scandal also caused a popular discussion between my friends. We were shocked at the time because Seungri is the boss of that night club. (Seungri of the band Big Bang, one of the club’s executive directors.) We all like the songs Big Bang. I didn’t expect Seungri’s business to be so “wide”. Since he is the boss of that night club, there are too many clues which indicate he knew about this issue but he allowed this happen.
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I also didn’t know that Seungri was so involved in the business acumen until I began to seriously look into this case. It was a big shock to me, as was the fact that he was so involved in this case. And I also agree that there were many clues that he might have been involved with shadier business practices and people. I remember several interviews conducted by the older members of Big Bang where they repeatedly tried to dissuade Seungri from hanging out with the wrong type of people. There are many compilations of this on YouTube, and I feel as though something like this was bound to come up with how often the older members discussed Seungri’s “friends.”
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This is such a crazy scandal, Gene! I think it is absolutely ridiculous that Kim was just trying to help an innocent (and drugged) woman, and the police harmed him- and took zero accountability! It just shows how profit crazy all governments are. I think that someone should find that erased footage, or stop siding with the nightclub. This is all illegal activity and police brutality and completely unethical
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It truly is despicable to think about it. It doesn’t help that the people in the upper management of the club have tried to turn it around on Kim, saying that he was, in fact, the one harassing women. There have been recent accounts in the news lately that “corroborate” this story that Kim is not the person we think him as, but I don’t put much faith in that. There is just too much to consider, but hopefully, the full truth comes out.
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Wow. This is the sort of crime den usually relegated to works of fiction. I’m glad at the very least that footage was recovered to support this claim and bring it to a much higher level of scrutiny. How long has Burning Sun operated like this without investigation?
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To be completely honest, no one truly knows. That’s why the investigation is ongoing in the first place. On top of that, they are a relatively new establishment, having first opened their doors on February 23 of 2018, So they’ve only really been in operation for less than one year when this scandal broke out. Who knows, they very well might have been practicing this way since the very beginning.
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