KBS has been embroiled in a human rights controversy over a documentary of the Korean Navy’s Ship Salvage and Rescue Unit (SSU).
On KBS Documentary Youtube account, an edited version of “Hell Training, 84 Days of Record – SSU Ship Salvage and Rescue Unit” was uploaded on Oct 1st.
The documentary was broadcast on September 25th, 2012 through the documentary series “Wednesday Special”. The episode contains the training course of recruits who applied for the Ship Salvage and Rescue Team of the SSU.
Among them, the controversial scene was the scene of recruits taking a group shower after training. Most of them in their 20s started washing their bodies after taking off their training clothes without being aware of the camera. The video showed the naked bodies of the recruits. The important parts were censored, but their naked bodies were still captured.
In some cases, the buttocks even came out uncensored because the mosaic was not properly processed. Critics point out that it was an inappropriate scene, although it meant to show the entire training process due to the nature of a documentary. The video has caused a lot of controversies. In the YouTube comment section, there have been quite a few users saying that it is a violation of military human rights.
After the strong wave of criticism, KBS set the video in question to private on Oct 18th. As of today, if you click on the video, you will see a private video notice. Netizens are showing negative reactions such as “What did I just see?”, “If it was a female military special, it would have been crazy,” and “Do soldiers have no human rights?”
