An appellate court handed down increased jail terms for former presidential aides to ousted former President Park Geun-hye on Tuesday for abusing authority in creating a blacklist of artists deemed critical of Park’s government and disadvantaging them.

Seoul High Court raised the previous sentence of three years to four years for Park’s ex-chief of staff Kim Ki-choon, while Cho Yoon-sun, a former culture minister and presidential secretary for political affairs, was sentenced to two years in prison for her involvement in the blacklist scandal. The lower court had sentenced Cho to a one-year jail term suspended for two years for perjury for falsely testifying before the National Assembly at a hearing last year. 

Following the ruling, Cho was immediately arrested. She was placed behind bars to stand trial in February last year, but was released in July after receiving a suspended term.

The court also found former President Park complicit in drawing up the blacklist.

The appeals court found Park’s remarks and perspectives had influenced the government to discourage left-leaning artists, and ultimately led to blacklisting. It also reasoned that she was regularly informed and had approved measures to disadvantage the blacklisted artists.

The court’s finding is likely to add the 19 charges the former president is standing trial for in connection with the massive corruption scandal which led to her ouster in March last year.

Park, who was arrested on March 31 and indicted on April 17, has since been detained at a correction facility just outside Seoul. She will continue to stand trial while under detention until the first verdict, expected in early February, is reached.

The appeals court criticized the defendants and said that such illegal acts of repressing freedom of speech lead to totalitarianism.

“The president at the top of the highest powers and her close aides systematically worked to deliberately exclude these artists and deprived them of opportunities. This is an unprecedented case,” the court said.

“There is no right or wrong to culture. Any kind of discrimination is unacceptable.”

As for the five other defendants in the case who are Culture Ministry officials and presidential office staff members, the court upheld the original verdicts of 18 months or two years in prison, as well as the suspended sentences.

The lower court had ruled in July that the defendants had orchestrated systematic discrimination against nearly 10,000 left-leaning artists, writers and filmmakers whose work appeared unfriendly to the conservative Park administration. They were convicted of cutting state funds and creating unfavorable conditions for targeted artists.

Kim was in office from mid-2013 to early 2015. Cho served as the presidential secretary for political affairs from June 2014 for about a year and was appointed culture minister in September 2016.

By Jo He-rim (herim@heraldcorp.com)