Kim Yoh-jin

By Kim Rahn

Actress Kim Yoh-jin’s open support of a female labor activist is drawing fresh public attention on the otherwise unnoticed struggle the laborer stages on a 35-meter-high crane in a shipyard in the southeastern part of the country.

Kim’s appeal for the union member is pitting netizens and civic groups against the police and management of the company.

The 39-year-old actress is making headlines almost daily as she is not only actively expressing her opinions through Twitter on a number of sensitive social issues but by actually visiting strike locations where various struggles are taking place as well.

“Can you see me? I’m across the street from the main gate of the shipyard. I wish you and I can have a chat.”

“You guys are cool. I feel good that you’re here with me.”

These are text messages exchanged between Kim and the female labor activist when the former visited the latter’s sit-in protest. Late at night on June 11, Kim entered the shipyard in Busan where unionists of Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction were holding a strike to demand the company scrap its plan to lay off workers.

She climbed up the high-rise ship-building crane to halfway where laborer Kim Jin-suk, a member of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, has been staging a sit-in for 160 days.

On the same day she went to the dockyard together with some 400 other activists to take part in the rally and was apprehended the next morning while exiting the shipyard. She was soon released after police confirmed her identity.

Kim Jin-suk

Police said Kim and the others broke into the facility illegally, adding they will take legal action on them. They asked Kim and the other 46 protesters to present themselves soon for questioning about their alleged trespassing, staging an unreported demonstration and not obeying the order to disperse.

The police decision to question the actress comes after the company filed a complaint against Kim and four other people for trespassing.

Kim said she would present herself and if she gets punished, she will accept it because she violated the law. “I can’t stop going to see her (Kim Jin-suk). If something happens to her, it will hurt me and other tweeters a lot,” she said in a media briefing in Seoul, Wednesday.

She urged people to pay attention to the activist who has been occupying the crane alone for more than five months.

“The activist said she can’t back off because of the workers facing layoffs. But for her, I can get down on my knees. I can kneel before Chairman Cho Nam-ho for thousands of times. I beg you, chairman Cho, please talk with your workers so that she can get down from the crane without being hurt,” the actress said.

As she faces investigation, other tweeters and Internet users have shown support for her.

A blogger said, “Entertainers used to be questioned over drugs, military service dodging and hit-and-run allegations, but Kim Yoh-jin is the first entertainer to face a police probe for supporting people society is neglecting.”

Another Internet user said, “When she presents herself, her supporters will gather at the police station. The number of supporters will show whether she did the right thing or a wrong thing.”

Comedian Kim Mi-wha, who is also engaged in civic group activities, supported the actress through her Twitter account by saying, “The news makes me sad that you were released after a short time in custody and you have to face more investigations. They may think you, an actress, should do only acting. I can tell you as a person who has been questioned several times: Cheer up!”