K-Pop singers sentenced to prison for gang rape

South Korean singers Jung Joon-young and Choi Jong-hoon were sentenced to six and five years in prison respectively on Friday for gang rapes committed in 2016.

Jung was also convicted for recording and distributing videos of himself having sex with women.

The Seoul Central District Court found that both men participated in gang rapes of women, who were unconscious or semi-unconscious, at two parties held in 2016 in Hongcheon – a city in the northeastern Gangwon Province – and in the city of Daegu, about 230 kilometers (143 miles) southeast of Seoul.

The other three people who participated in the rapes received sentences of four years, five years and eight months in prison, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.

Jung, who became famous through a TV music show, received a longer sentence than Choi – former member of band FT Island- for secretly taking pictures of 10 women he had sex with and sharing them on an instant messaging group.

Some other artists from the South Korean entertainment industry were also part of this group, in which they joked about drugging and raping women.

The content of this chat group was discovered during an investigation into Seungri, a former member of the well-known band Big Bang accused of facilitating prostitution services, at a nightclub in Seoul for potential investors in his businesses in 2015.

The sentences for the two singers came a few days after the alleged suicide of K-Pop singer Goo Hara.

Before her death, her former partner, Choi Jong-bum, had threatened to publish intimates videos of her.

Another South Korean singer, Sulli, also committed suicide after facing cyber-harrasment for posing topless, another example of machismo and misogyny in the South Korean music industry.

(EFE-EPA)