JMS, a South Korean religious group, is suspected of indecent exposure of a plaster cast of a nude female believer. | FRIDAY DIGITAL

JMS, a South Korean religious group, is suspected of indecent exposure of a plaster cast of a nude female believer.

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Defendant Chong (masked figure in center) is accused of sexual assault by a string of female believers. Photo taken in February ’08 (PHOTO: Reuters/Afro)

Sexually assaulted by the “Messiah”

A number of women in South Korea are suing a religious leader who calls himself “Messiah” for sexual harassment. On April 13, the Chungnam Police in western South Korea announced that a female believer in her 30s had filed a complaint. This brings to six the number of people who have accused her of sexual harassment.

The accused is Myung-Seok Chung, 78, president of the “Christian Gospel Mission Society” (“JMS”). The first publicized case dates back to August ’01. He repeatedly sexually assaulted four female believers in their 20s at resort apartments in Malaysia and Hong Kong over a five-year period until April 2006. Chung was convicted of 10 years in prison and released in February 2006.

Korean women are not the only ones who have reported sexual assault. Foreigners have also filed complaints.

From February ’18 to September ’21, a female Hong Kong national was indecently assaulted 17 times at a JMS facility in Geumsan County in western South Korea. At the same facility, an Australian national was sexually assaulted five times from July ’18 to December of the same year. The defendant Chung is currently on trial for the two men on charges of quasi-rape, among others”.

The number of female victims may exceed 10,000.

According to Professor Kim Do-hyun of Dankook University, who has been pursuing the case against JMS, more than 10,000 women may have been sexually victimized by Chung in March, according to an interview with radio broadcaster YTN. According to Professor Kim, Chung is said to have once told him, “I’ve had 10,000 women sexually harmed by [Chung].

My ultimate goal is to make him a ‘heavenly lover’ by providing sexual relief to 10,000 women.

On April 18, an MBC TV program revealed a shocking fact.

According to a witness who appeared on the program, while Chung was in prison, Mr. A, the number two of the cult, gathered a group of beautiful female believers in a room in the compound, dressed them in inflammatory clothing, and photographed them. He then took off the women’s clothes and sent the photos to defendant Chung in prison.

He also had the women undress and apply a special liquid all over their bodies to create plaster casts. The selected members of the congregation were called “stars,” and there were more than 1,000 of them, including foreigners. According to the program, the women received letters from defendant Chong saying, “I will love you like a blast furnace.

The allegations of sexual assault by the JMS guru became widely known in the Netflix documentary “All for God: Faith Betrayed,” which was released in March. According to the film and the prosecution’s claims in court, Chung allegedly brainwashed female members of his congregation into a state in which they were unable to resist, and then committed the crimes.

  • PHOTO Reuters/Afro

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