South Korean man who attacked ‘feminist’ shop worker over short hair jailed for 3 years

A court in Jinju, about 280km from Seoul, ordered the man to pay 2.5 million won (US$1,850) in compensation to the shop’s owner and 10 million won (US$7,400) to a customer who was injured while trying to stop the attack in November last year.

According to police, the intoxicated defendant reportedly told the woman employee: “Since you have short hair, you must be a feminist. I’m a male chauvinist, and I think feminists deserve to be assaulted.”

He later punched and kicked her, resulting in multiple injuries, including hearing loss.

The accused also used a chair to hit the shopper who attempted to intervene, causing grievous injuries to his shoulder and nose, the court heard.

The prosecution had sought a five-year jail term, but the court said psychological evaluation of the man showed he was in an unstable mental state at the time of the incident.

The victims expressed their disappointment over the lighter punishment, while gender rights groups rebuked the court for refusing to treat the case as a hate crime directed against women.

“It is regrettable that the court did not see the incident as a hate crime. … If an act of targeting someone out of hate, just because they belong to a specific group, is not considered a hate crime, then what is?” a coalition of women’s rights groups said in a statement on Tuesday following the ruling.

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Meanwhile, the Jinju city government said it would honour the convenience store customer, who was so traumatised from the incident that he quit his job, and help him find employment.

“He sacrificed himself while trying to rescue a citizen, so we [Jinju city] decided that we should help him,” the local