South Korea Military Is Accused of Cracking Down on Gay Soldiers

SEOUL, South Korea — At a time when South Korea is struggling to deter North Korea’s nuclear threats, human rights advocates say its military is targeting gay soldiers in its ranks.

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In recent weeks, the army has focused on dozens of those soldiers in what rights groups say is a campaign against gay men in the 620,000-member military. At least 32 faced criminal charges of “sodomy or other disgraceful conduct,” according to the domestic news media and lawyers and rights advocates familiar with the cases.

On Tuesday night, the issue of gay rights became a focus in South Korea’s presidential race, when the candidate who leads in the polls, Moon Jae-in, joined another contender in saying that he opposed homosexuality. Critics said the statement was a stark tactic to win support among conservative voters.

In South Korea, the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are a largely taboo and politically unpopular subject. In recent years, powerful right-wing Christian groups have intensified a campaign against homosexuality, scuttling a bill that would have given sexual minorities the same protection as other minorities.

“Our military remains stuck in a barbarian and medieval culture,” said Lim Tae-hoon, director of the Military Human Rights Center. “The investigators preyed upon gay soldiers’ vulnerability like a cat playing with a mouse.”

Mr. Moon made the comment during a debate in which the issue of the military’s treatment of gays was raised. Under the conscript system, all eligible men are required to serve about two years.

But the Military Criminal Act outlaws sodomy and other unspecified “disgraceful conduct” between servicemen, whether or not there is mutual consent and whether or not that conduct takes place in or outside the military compounds. Those found to have violated the act face up to two years in prison.

The army declined to provide details of its investigation. It insisted that it was not cracking down on gay soldiers; instead it said that it was trying to root out sodomy and other homosexual activities, which right-wing Christian groups have called a growing blight on its readiness to fight North Korea’s 1.2 million-strong military.

But in the past week, evidence has emerged to support the allegations by gay soldiers that investigators flouted the army’s own regulations on how to treat gay service members by preying upon the soldiers’ fear of shame and abuse if they are outed in the military. Analysts and veterans said bullying, hazing and sexual violence were chronic problems.

In a series of telephone conversations secretly recorded in March and April, an army investigator warned a gay sergeant against seeking help from lawyers or the National Human Rights Commission. In one conversation, the investigator complained that another gay soldier refused to cooperate with the inquiry and wanted to hire a lawyer.

“If he hires a lawyer, that means he is outing himself,” the investigator says in the recording, uploaded to the website of the Military Human Rights Center for Korea, based in Seoul.

It is unknown how many gay soldiers were punished under the anti-sodomy law before the recent flurry of charges.

Gay soldiers said they feared that they were being scapegoated in the recent inquiry as part of an effort by the army to contain sexual abuse. In a survey of 671 veterans commissioned by the National Human Rights Commission in 2004, more than 15 percent said they had been sexually abused.

Mr. Lim, the director of the Military Human Rights Center, said the inquiry also detracted from looming security concerns.

“It’s time for our military to focus on how to deal with the North Korean threat, but by going after gay soldiers, it is actually shooting at its own troops,” Mr. Lim said. “They don’t seem to realize how grave our security situation is.”



Lim Tae-hoon, director of the Military Human Rights Center, in Seoul this month. “Our military remains stuck in a barbarian and medieval culture,” he said. “The investigators preyed upon gay soldiers’ vulnerability like a cat playing with a mouse.” CreditLee Jin-Man/Associated PressThe crackdown began early this year when the army was tipped to a video clip on social media that showed a soldier and an officer, both men, having sex. The soldier was arrested on charges of violating the military criminal code, as well as a law against spreading obscene content online.

But the case did not end there.

Using information they learned from the case, investigators expanded the inquiry. Army regulations ban discriminating against gay soldiers and forbid identifying or outing gay men or asking about their sexual experiences.