The Blacklist

Shortly after her arrest in January, South Korea’s minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Cho Yoon-sun resigned from her post, becoming the first sitting minister in Korea to be taken into custody. The arrests came after Korean officials began investigations in December, probing the blacklisting of artists who criticized or opposed impeached president Park Geun-hye’s administration. On February 7, both Cho and Kim were formally charged with abuse of power and coercion. The controversial roster reportedly included more than 9,000 members of the country’s arts community—musicians, visual artists, filmmakers, actors, writers and other cultural figures—such as acclaimed film director Park Chan-wook, who directed the acclaimed neo-noir film Oldboy (2003), and author Han Kang, who won last year’s Man Booker International Prize for The Vegetarian (2007). In an effort to systematically…