Here’s the extracted and translated content:
Justice in South Korea has apologized to a 78-year-old woman for a judicial error sixty years ago. The woman was convicted for biting off a man’s tongue. She did so in self-defense when he tried to rape her.
Choi Mal-Ja was eighteen years old when a man attacked her in 1964 and tried to rape her. The 21-year-old man pushed his tongue into her mouth and pressed her to the ground. Choi was able to prevent the rape by biting off half an inch of his tongue.
Shortly thereafter, both Choi and the man were convicted. Choi received a ten-month prison sentence for causing harm to her attacker’s body. The man got away with a lighter sentence: he received six months in prison for trespassing and harassment. He was not convicted of attempted rape.
The judge ruled at the time that Choi’s actions exceeded the “reasonable limits” of self-defense.
But she didn’t let it rest and now, more than sixty years later, seems to be proven right. Choi has been campaigning in recent years to have her conviction overturned. She was supported by organizations of the MeToo movement in the country.
Reversing conviction seems formality
The process to undo the conviction began on Wednesday. Prosecutors began the hearing by apologizing for the judge’s decision sixty years ago. On September 10, the judge will decide whether to overturn the conviction. But given the apologies, that seems like a formality.
“For 61 years, the state has let me go through life as a criminal,” Choi told reporters ahead of the hearing. She hopes that future generations can live a happy life without sexual violence.
After the hearing, Choi clenched her fist and shouted, “We won!”
The Choi case is seen in South Korea as a textbook example of the judiciary’s failure to recognize the right to self-protection during sexual violence, writes BBC News. Undoing that judicial error would be an important symbolic victory.