A plenary session of the National Assembly's Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee [Yonhap]
A plenary session of the National Assembly's Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee [Yonhap]

The National Assembly's Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee has decided to summon Park Jin-young, co-chairman of the Popular Culture Exchange Committee, to testify at next month's national audit.

The committee held a plenary session Tuesday and adopted a list of 15 general witnesses and 17 reference witnesses for the national audit, including Park.

Park is expected to appear as a witness at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism's national audit on Oct. 7. The committee also adopted Jeon Han-jin, former secretary-general of the Korea Football Association, as a witness over allegations of preferential treatment in approving international sporting events, and Tving Chief Executive Choi Ju-hee and others as witnesses to question the circumstances surrounding a personal data leak.

The session saw a clash between the ruling and opposition parties over whether to summon Heo Jin-ho, director of the film "The Assassin," which depicts the assassination of the late first lady Yuk Young-soo. The People Power Party has argued that the film distorts history by implying that former President Park Chung-hee was behind the killing.

People Power Party lawmaker Jo Eun-hee, who leads her party's side on the committee, said creative freedom must be respected but suggested that, given the controversy over historical distortion, the director could be called as a reference witness rather than a formal witness. Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Lee Jeong-mun, who leads his party's side on the committee, rebuffed that position, saying Heo had made clear he had no such intention and that summoning him would seriously chill freedom of expression. The two sides failed to reach an agreement on whether to call Heo as either a witness or a reference witness.


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