President Lee Jae-myung has carried out a special pardon on Liberation Day for former Rebuilding Korea Party leader Cho Kuk, former Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Yoon Mee-hyang, and others, while fans are again raising calls for a pardon for singer Yoo Seung-jun (49, Steve Yoo), prompting a renewed focus on President Lee's past criticism of Yoo.
On the 9th, a statement was posted in the Yoo Seung-jun gallery on the online community DC Inside, saying, "I hope the will for national integration and harmony shown in the discussion of the political pardons for former leader Cho Kuk and former lawmaker Yoon Mee-hyang will be applied equally to the general citizen Yoo Seung-jun."
Fans added, "I hope the president's decision will be an opportunity to realize the constitutional values of equity and fairness."
However, President Lee severely criticized Yoo on social media in May 2015 while serving as mayor of Seongnam, posting an article titled, "What can a person who abandoned their country to evade their duties say now?"
The president wrote, "Mr. Yoo Seung-jun, do you want to return to Korea where young people living much harder lives than you are losing their lives today to gun violence while fulfilling their military duties?"
He continued, "The sense of relative deprivation and grievance is fully satisfied by high-ranking officials who evade their military duties in various ways, so please be faithful to your country, and I hope you will forget the Korea you have betrayed and abandoned."
Yoo Seung-jun has not set foot in Korea for 23 years due to the military service evasion controversy. He renounced his Korean citizenship ahead of his enlistment in 2002 and was denied entry at Incheon International Airport in February of that year, waiting for six hours before departing. He briefly returned in 2003 for his father-in-law's funeral, but he remains under a ban on entry.
He applied for a overseas Korean visa (F-4) at the consulate in Los Angeles in October 2015 but was denied; he subsequently filed a lawsuit and won two final rulings at the Supreme Court.
However, the consulate in Los Angeles again denied the visa issuance in June of last year, and Yoo Seung-jun took legal action for the third time in September, filing a lawsuit to cancel the denial and a lawsuit against the Ministry of Justice to confirm the non-existence of the entry ban.