Was Lee Jae-myung, the leader of South Korea's largest opposition party, attacked with disposable wooden chopsticks? No, that's not true: The police confirmed that the weapon was an 18-centimeter (7-inch)-long knife.
The claim appeared in a post on Facebook (archived here) on January 2, 2024, by Noh Hwan-kyu, who was (archived here) president (archived here) of the Korean Medical Association from May 2012 to April 2014. It said (translated from Korean to English by Lead Stories staff):
Many unanswered questions about the accident arise from the fact that the weapon was disposable wooden chopsticks.
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Thu Jan 4 03:45:24 2024 UTC)
On January 2, 2024, Lee, the leader of South Korea's Democratic Party, was stabbed in the neck by a 66-year-old man (archived here). Local police had explained in a briefing on January 2, 2024, published in a YouTube video (archived here) that the weapon was an 18-centimeter knife. The statement is made at the 14.38 mark in the video of the briefing. Several local (archived here) press (archived here) reports (archived here) also confirm that the weapon was a knife.
The false claim is spread mainly in conservative circles such as here on Facebook (archived here) and on YouTube. Some even claim that the attack was a planned (archived here) political (archived here) staging (archived here).
