Lee Jae-myung's innocence petition exceeds 1 million, but credibility concern rises

[Anchor]

Ahead of the first trial verdict on the perjury coaching charges against Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the Democratic Party, his supporters submitted over 1.1 million 'innocence petitions' to the court.

However, concerns have been raised regarding the reliability of the petitions collected online.

Reporter Jeon Hyun-woo has the story.

[Report]

The Democratic Innovation Council, a support group for Representative Lee Jae-myung, recently conducted a petition signing campaign urging for his acquittal over the past month.

As a result, they collected a total of over 1.12 million petitions, including about 1.03 million online and around 80,000 offline, which were submitted to the Seoul Central District Court ahead of the first trial verdict on the perjury coaching charges against Representative Lee.

[Han Min-soo/Democratic Party Spokesperson/Nov.20: "I believe the public is wisely judging the trust in Representative Lee Jae-myung, the unreasonable prosecution, and the recent trial verdicts..."]

This is the petition participation site.

You can participate immediately by simply entering your name, address, and contact information.

There are no identity verification procedures like mobile phone authentication, making it possible to manipulate names, addresses, and contact information, and there is virtually no way to prevent one person from submitting multiple times.

The People Power Party has criticized the supporters of Representative Lee for intimidating the judiciary with fake public opinion.

[Joo Jin-woo/People Power Party Member/Nov.21: "Submitting petitions exceeding 1 million is an act of showcasing the number of a political force. In such cases, it could be an undue pressure on the judiciary..."]

A representative from the Democratic Innovation Council, which led the petition signing campaign, acknowledged that they filtered out 60,000 false entries during the collection process but admitted that accurate identity verification was not conducted.

They emphasized that while strict identity verification was not in place, it is important to note that many citizens participated.

This is KBS News, Jeon Hyun-woo.