Roh Moo-hyun Foundation protests use of derogatory expression toward late president in Lotte Giants video

The Roh Moo-hyun Foundation on Wednesday expressed regret over a derogatory expression targeting the late president in a YouTube video posted by the professional baseball club Lotte Giants and urged the club to take firm measures to prevent a recurrence.

“We express deep regret that a hateful term associated with a specific online community was used without any filtering on the official channel of a professional sports club with significant public influence,” the foundation said Wednesday.

The controversy arose from an overview video uploaded on Monday that featured game footage and players’ reactions in the dugout during Sunday’s game, in which Lotte defeated the Kia Tigers.

In the video, a caption reading muhan baksu appeared next to the name of infielder No Jin-hyuk on the back of his jersey as he clapped. The expression means “infinite applause” in Korean.

However, some baseball fans pointed out that “No” combined with “muhan baksu” is used as a derogatory term against the deceased Roh on a far-right online forum.

The far-right online forum is known for employing other images and references to mock Roh, a liberal whose political base was in the Jeolla region and Gwangju, where the Kia Tigers are based.

The foundation said it had visited Sajik Baseball Stadium in Busan the previous day to deliver a letter of protest and demand preventive measures. The stadium is a ballpark for the Lotte Giants.

“[The club] failed to fully recognize the possible association of the expression during the filming and editing process,” the Busan club reportedly told the foundation.

“The incident could not simply be dismissed as a mistake, given that the match was against a Gwangju-based rival and took place just ahead of the anniversaries of the May 18 Gwangju democracy movement and Roh’s death on May 23,” the foundation said. 

“The incident has already caused deep hurt among many citizens,” the foundation said.

“Sports should be a space for peace, unity and mutual respect,” it added. “Mockery and hatred directed at others should not be excused as humor or simple mistakes, and it should not be repeated.”

The foundation further urged the Giants “to disclose the circumstances surrounding the incident and the results of any internal investigation transparently” and “prepare a thorough review process across all stages of content production, strong preventive measures against recurrence and sternly punish those responsible.”

In response, the Lotte Giants said the person responsible for the incident “was an external contractor who had already left their company following the incident,” but also noted that the club “absolutely did not insert the hateful expression intentionally.”

“We decided to establish a new system in which the club itself would conduct secondary and tertiary reviews of YouTube content produced by outside contractors,” the Giants said as it offered its “sincere apology.”

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.

BY HYEON YE-SEUL [lee.soojung1@joongang.co.kr]