The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office in a meeting with the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office, the National Police Agency, and the Korea Communications Committee, concluded legal action is inevitable as terrorizing of businesses to get them to pull their ads has gone beyond the level of a consumer movement and begun to reveal systematic and malicious intent.

In a weekly meeting of senior officials, the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office decided to tackle the issue by forming an investigative team at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office. Concerns about punishing a consumer movement were raised, but the majority reportedly agreed activists must not be permitted to threaten the free press with boycott movements. “We obtained an intelligence report that part of the posts on pressing the businesses came up via Chinese IP numbers, so we are currently investigating,” a prosecutor said. “We are also investigating the fact that many messages are being uploaded repeatedly from around 10 domestic IPs.”

Prosecutors said damage the businesses sustained from the movement may also make campaigners subject to civil suits.

Meanwhile, the National Police Agency said Monday that it is considering requesting an arrest warrant for 10 executive members of the People's Association for Measures Against Mad Cow Disease. Eo Cheong-soo, commissioner general of the Korean National Police Agency, said that in addition to charging them with criminal offenses, police are also thinking about claiming damages against the organizers of the candlelight vigils against the import of American beef. According to the police, candlelight vigils have resulted in damage to 58 police buses and 793 pieces of equipment and injured 188 officers, 16 of them severely and requiring four or more weeks of medical treatment, 12 of them hospitalized. When asked who the defendants would be, Eo said it was “an organization that led the demonstrations.”

(englishnews@chosun.com )