Was Lee Jae Myung, the leader of South Korea's Democratic Party, arrested? No, that's not true: A South Korean court rejected in September 2023 a motion to serve an arrest warrant against him, on charges of bribery and breach of duty.
The claim originated from a video (archived here) published on TikTok by @jayusisun on December 8, 2023. The caption in Korean in the video reads, as translated into English by Lead Stories staff:
This is my country.
Lee Jae Myung was arrested.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Jan 3 16:43:27 2024 UTC)
The video was posted with the following hashtags, as translated by Lead Stories staff:
#LeeJaeMyungArrested #TearJaeMyung #CrimeDepartmentStore #DemocraticPartyofKorea #DemocratCriminalParty
Lawmakers in South Korea voted to serve an arrest against Lee Jae Myung, South Korea's opposition leader, as Reuters (archived here) and The Wall Street Journal (archived here) reported on September 21 and 22, 2023, respectively. Still, the South Korean politician was not arrested.
Lee Jae Myung faced an investigation concerning numerous charges, including bribery and perjury (archived here), and went on a 24-day hunger strike to protest against the accusations and President Yoon Suk Yeol's government. Reuters reported on September 27, 2023, that he avoided jail after the Seoul Central District Court rejected the arrest warrant (archived here).
The prosecution had already requested an arrest warrant against the opposition leader on February 16, 2023, (archived here), but the motion had been rejected by the National Assembly on February 27, 2023, (archived here) by a close margin, with 139 votes in favor and 138 against, out of 297 votes, thus failing to meet the required majority of at least 149 favorable votes.
In a second vote, held on September 21, 2023, the parliament voted to allow prosecutors to serve an arrest warrant against Lee Jae Myung. YTN News (archived here) reported that the motion to arrest Lee had 149 votes in favor and 136 against. A South Korean court, though, denied the arrest warrant (archived here).
