Photo : YONHAP News
Police are accelerating their investigation into Shinsegae Group Chairman Chung Yong-jin after a Starbucks Korea marketing campaign generated public outrage on the anniversary of the May 18 Gwangju Democratization Movement.
On Friday, police questioned the head of a civic group who’d filed a complaint against Chung and former Starbucks Korea CEO Sohn Jeong-hyun, alleging insult and defamation for using promotional slogans such as “Tank Day” to promote a Tank tumbler series on the anniversary of the uprising in 1980.
In the complaint, filed Wednesday, Kim Soon-hwan of the People’s Welfare Countermeasure Committee accused Starbucks Korea of insulting the citizens of Gwangju and the bereaved families of the people who were massacred when the government suppressed the uprising with tanks and helicopters.
Chung, the largest shareholder of Starbucks Korea, was accused of neglecting his supervisory responsibilities over the coffee chain.
Police had originally planned to question the complainant next Friday, but moved up the schedule after reassigning the case from the Gangnam Police Station to the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency’s public crimes investigation unit.