Yoon Mi-hyang "Nabi Fund, Personal Account but Not Mixed" Explanation... Citizen Group Filing Complaint Criticizes as "Wordplay" (Comprehensive)

Yoon Mi-hyang, a member-elect of the Democratic Party of Korea, who has been suspected of accounting fraud related to the Solidarity for Justice and Memory, is holding a press conference to explain the situation on the 29th at the National Assembly in Yeouido, Seoul. Photo by Kang Jin-hyung aymsdream@

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Gwan-joo] A conservative civic group that filed a complaint against Yoon Mee-hyang, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, criticized her explanation on Facebook about collecting donations through a personal account as "wordplay."

On the afternoon of the 1st, Yoon posted on her Facebook, explaining about the personal donation account: "On March 8, 2012, grandmothers Kim Bok-dong and Gil Won-ok declared a message that if the Japanese government legally compensated, the entire compensation would be donated to victims of wartime sexual violence. With that intention, Jeongdaehyeop (the predecessor of Justice and Memory Foundation) announced the creation of the 'Nabi Fund' and initially set up a temporary account under my name (Yoon Mee-hyang) for the Nabi Fund to collect donations," adding, "Although the account was opened under a personal name, it was used exclusively for the Nabi Fund. It is not a 'mixed-use' account."

She further stated, "The mixed-use accounts started from 2014 with other fundraising activities, so it is completely different in timing from the 2012 apartment purchase," clarifying that the Nabi Fund account created in 2012, when the apartment was purchased, was not a mixed-use account, and that the fundraising activities from 2014 onwards involved mixed-use accounts, implying that there was no misuse of donations.

In response, the Coalition for the Restoration of the Rule of Law (Beopse-ryeon) issued a statement on the 2nd, strongly condemning her explanation as "wordplay that distorts the essence." Beopse-ryeon is a group that has repeatedly filed complaints with the prosecution against Yoon regarding allegations of accounting fraud in the Justice and Memory Foundation (Jeonguiyeondae), including charges of breach of trust.

Beopse-ryeon pointed out, "The essence is whether the donations and contributions collected to help the comfort women victims were embezzled using personal accounts," and added, "Since 2012, multiple fundraisings were conducted through personal accounts such as the Nabi Fund, and the question is whether that money was used for private purposes." They further demanded, "To claim innocence, the details of the personal account fundraising from 2012 must be transparently disclosed to prove that the donations were used for their intended purpose."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.