Former Roh Moo-hyun Foundation Chairperson Yoo Si-min stepped down as the foundation's senior adviser. Yoo said he would also end the foundation's YouTube program "Alileleo Books" at the end of June.
The Roh Moo-hyun Foundation said in a notice on its website on the 15th, "In response to senior adviser Yoo Si-min's request to resign, we inform you that as of the 15th he has been relieved of his duties as senior adviser." The foundation also released the message that the former senior adviser sent to donor members.
In the message, the former senior adviser said, "For the time being, I intend to leave the Roh Moo-hyun Foundation," adding, "I asked the foundation to relieve me of the senior adviser role. I also notified them that 'Alileleo Books' will be discontinued at the end of June."
Explaining the reasons for resigning as senior adviser and ending Alileleo Books, the former senior adviser said it was "to prevent any difficulties the Roh Moo-hyun Foundation might face because of my future commentary activities."
The decision came after Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Kwak Sang-eon, the son-in-law of the late former President Roh Moo-hyun, recently publicly criticized how the foundation is run. On his YouTube show, Kwak noted that the foundation's official YouTube channel is being operated around the former chairperson Yoo, contrary to the purpose for which the foundation was established.
Kwak argued that a large share of the foundation channel's content features the former chairperson or related figures. He said that of roughly 2,000 videos on the foundation's YouTube channel, about 360, including regular videos and shorts, are related to former President Roh, while content featuring the former chairperson Yoo accounts for nearly 70% of the total.
Kwak said, "I don't know whom we should see the foundation as effectively promoting." He added, "If a bakery doesn't sell bread but promotes the bakery owner who makes it, that's a PR firm, not a bakery."
Kwak also took issue with the foundation's YouTube channel live-streaming the former chairperson Yoo's book launch in April. He criticized on the grounds that even if Yoo's content helped increase subscribers to the foundation's channel, whether it should happen on the foundation's channel is a separate matter.
The former chairperson Yoo took office as chair of the Roh Moo-hyun Foundation in 2019 and, after stepping down in 2021, continued as the foundation's senior adviser. On the foundation's YouTube channel, content such as "Yoo Si-min's Alileleo" and "Alileleo Books," which the former chairperson has hosted or appeared in, has continued.