South Korean netizens wouldn’t tolerate Polanski

FT reports that Europeans are outraged by the vocal support that their political and cultural elites have bestowed upon the disgraced Roman Polanski. As far as I could judge, European "outrage" usually manifests itself in using a bunch of expletives in the otherwise polite letters that angry Germans or Swedes pen to their local papers. ...

FT reports that Europeans are outraged by the vocal support that their political and cultural elites have bestowed upon the disgraced Roman Polanski. As far as I could judge, European "outrage" usually manifests itself in using a bunch of expletives in the otherwise polite letters that angry Germans or Swedes pen to their local papers. So I doubt that angry mobs of angry Belgians would set a Polish (French?) embassy on fire. 

FT reports that Europeans are outraged by the vocal support that their political and cultural elites have bestowed upon the disgraced Roman Polanski. As far as I could judge, European "outrage" usually manifests itself in using a bunch of expletives in the otherwise polite letters that angry Germans or Swedes pen to their local papers. So I doubt that angry mobs of angry Belgians would set a Polish (French?) embassy on fire. 

The outraged Europeans have much to learn from South Koreans here: the case of the 57-year-old child rapist who received only 12 years in jail for beating and raping an 8-year-old infuriated the South Korean public. The Korea Times reports that "more than 400,000 Internet users have signed a petition through the online portal site Daum, calling for a retrial, the imposition of capital punishment against Cho, and compensation for the victim and her family".

There you have it: 400,000 people have asked for the offender to be hanged, not a very encouraging example of vigilante cyber-justice in action In contrast, the angry Europeans can barely organize a boycott of Polanski’s movies…

Evgeny Morozov is a fellow at the Open Society Institute and sits on the board of OSI's Information Program. He writes the Net Effect blog on ForeignPolicy.com

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