Former Korea Medical Association president Noh Hwan-kyu enters a police station to be investigated over suspicions of instigating the ongoing mass walkout by trainee doctors on March 9. (Yonhap)
Police on Monday raided the operator of an online community as part of its investigation into a purported Korea Medical Association document ordering the listing of trainee doctors who are not participating in the ongoing walkout.
Investigators of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency searched Dcinside Co. in Seoul, days after a document purportedly from the KMA, the biggest doctors' association, was uploaded on the namesake online community with the seal of the KMA chairman.
The document contained "guidelines" instructing the creation and dissemination of a list identifying interns and resident doctors not participating in the walkout protesting the government's decision to increase the medical school quota by 2,000 seats starting next year.
"We plan to look into the factual relevance of the document through a search," Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency Commissioner Cho Ji-ho told reporters earlier in the day.
The KMA has claimed that the document is fake and the seal fabricated, adding it will file a complaint against the writer for forgery and spreading false information.
A civic group, named the People's Livelihood Countermeasures Committee, has since lodged a complaint against the KMA and its leadership on suspicions of instigating the so-called blacklisting and its online posting.
Police are also conducting an investigation into five current and former leaders of the KMA after the health ministry filed a complaint on suspicions of instigating the ongoing mass walkout by thousands of trainee doctors.
If they have issued guidelines for the walkout or provided support through other means, it would constitute obstruction of business, the Seoul police chief said.
Cho added that it is too early to speak of the possibility of seeking an arrest warrant for the five as only two of them have been questioned so far. (Yonhap)
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