“How can South Korea’s law be this weak? Twenty-three people died!”
Those were the words of Chinese mother Li Shun-ji after South Korea’s Supreme Court upheld a reduced four-year prison sentence for Aricell CEO Park Soon-kwan last Tuesday over a 2024 factory fire that killed 23 workers, including Li’s then-24-year-old daughter, Yan Jing-jing.
The blaze at the lithium battery manufacturer’s factory in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi province, killed 17 Chinese nationals, one Laotian national and five South Koreans, and injured nine others. About 35,000 lithium batteries reportedly exploded in a chain reaction, with defective products and rushed operations to meet military supply deadlines contributing to the disaster.
“Are you making this decision because we are foreigners?” Li, 56, said through tears after the ruling.