Independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon questions Unification Minister Jeong Dong-young at a national audit of the Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee held at the Inter-Korean Dialogue Headquarters in Jongno-gu, Seoul, on Wednesday. [Yonhap]
Independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon questions Unification Minister Jeong Dong-young at a national audit of the Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee held at the Inter-Korean Dialogue Headquarters in Jongno-gu, Seoul, on Wednesday. [Yonhap]

Independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon on Monday vowed to pursue civil and criminal legal action against the Democratic Party of Korea after its members raised allegations that his daughter had falsified volunteer service records, calling the attacks "political retaliation" that spread falsehoods about an unrelated family member.

Han posted on Facebook a police document showing the case had been closed without charges, explaining that his daughter and other volunteers with her organization had provided online English tutoring during the COVID-19 pandemic. He said an MBC news report in June 2022 alleged that volunteer hours had been logged at a welfare facility in advance, prompting a police investigation following a complaint by a civic group. Police ultimately cleared his daughter, finding she had volunteered consistently and that no forgery or false entries had occurred.

Han added that the complainants had twice requested a review by a police investigative review committee, but both reviews upheld the finding of no wrongdoing. He also said parents of children who had received free online English lessons directly from his daughter and her fellow volunteers confirmed that the tutoring had in fact taken place.

Targeting the Democratic Party, Han said the attacks were driven purely by a desire for political retaliation — specifically over his criticism of Justice Minister Kim Seung-won's conduct, his efforts to expose delays in the investigation of a DMZ landmine attack, and his questioning of alleged fabrications in the investigation into former President Roh Moo-hyun. "What other reason could there be for suddenly ganging up like this, other than political retaliation?" he said.

Han went on to say that despite what he called the Democratic Party's "despicable political retaliation" carried out while he was away for an overseas audit of the Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee in the United States, he would press ahead with Tuesday's national audit of the US Embassy to thoroughly examine the state of the South Korea-US relationship and ways to improve it.

Earlier, Democratic Party lawmaker Kang Deuk-gu had raised questions at a press conference at the National Assembly about volunteer activities Han's daughter was said to have performed at a children's community center in Anyang from September 2020 over a period of one year and eight months. Kang said documents submitted to the National Assembly showed that Han's daughter had not signed the volunteer activity logs herself, and that she had coordinated and supported scheduling for other volunteers conducting online classes rather than teaching the classes herself.

Han rebuffed those claims, saying that both police and the city government had investigated the matter at the time and concluded not that records were falsified but that the children's center had been poorly managed — a finding that led to the center losing its designated status. He said the city government had initially inserted the phrase "false performance entry" into its documents, but that the center's own explanation — confirming the volunteer work had genuinely taken place — was accepted, and the conclusion was corrected to one of administrative mismanagement.


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