Activist fined for protesting at Japanese Embassy against comfort women deal

A South Korean activist was ordered to pay a 2 million won ($1,800) fine Thursday on charges of trespassing into the Japanese Embassy in Seoul while protesting against a controversial deal between the two countries over Japan's wartime sexual enslavement of Korean women.

Kim Sam was indicted in August last year for entering the embassy building in central Seoul in December 2015, along with members of a student group she leads in support of the former sex slaves.

A weekly rally is under way in front of the Japanese Embassy, which is being renovated, in downtown Seoul on May 17, 2017, to demand Japan apologize for the sexual slavery of Korean women by the Japanese military during World War II. (Yonhap)

Kim and some 30 other students were arrested while protesting the agreement which critics say was hastily arranged without sufficiently seeking opinions from the victims.

Under the deal, the two agreed to resolve the issue with Tokyo expressing an apology and donating 1 billion yen ($9.97 million) to a foundation dedicated to help the victims.

Judge Kim Ji-cheol at the Seoul Central District Court said he took into consideration that the crime was not committed for personal profits and that the controversy over the deal, the fundamental cause of the protest, still continues. (Yonhap)