This is a strange case where a Korean Internet blogger is being indicted for spreading false rumors:

South Korean prosecutors indicted a blogger on Thursday who had warned of financial doom for the country with critics saying he was targeted because his gloomy forecasts upset the government battling an economic downturn.

The blogger, writing under the pseudonym Minerva, became a household name for his predictions of sharp falls in the won and the local stock market and the collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers. Prosecutors said he hurt the local currency by posting incorrect information online.

“The suspect in this case was indicted on charges of false information on two occasions,” an official at the prosecutors’ office said by telephone.

As South Korean markets tumbled late last year amid the global downturn, the main financial regulator warned it would crack down on what it considered malicious rumors and some economic analysts say they have come under pressure from authorities not to voice negative views on the economy.

“The prosecution hurriedly went ahead with its investigation and a court readily gave prosecutors a permit to conduct a witch hunt,” the liberal Hankyoreh daily said in a recent editorial, calling the case an infringement of freedom of speech.

Prosecutors identified the blogger as Park Dae-sung, an unemployed 30-year-old man who faces up to five years in prison if he is found guilty of violating communications laws.

Since his detention earlier this month, legal experts have questioned whether authorities had legal grounds to prosecute individuals. Meanwhile the conservative ruling party of President Lee Myung-bak is pushing for a tough new law on cyber slander.  [Reuters]

If you prosecute everyone in Korea spreading false rumors online then the government would have to construct a new jail to put all these people in.  If the government wants focus on stopping the spread of false information they can start with their mainstream media such MBC that was spreading all the false mad cow information last year or back in 2002 when all the media was spreading lie after lie in regards to the armored vehicle accident.

Prosecuting Minerva seems like a waste of time and resources compared to the incompetence and corruption in the Korean mainstream media.