Civic Organizations Call SK Chemicals, Aekyung to be Punished As Well

South Korean civic organizations such as the Korean Federation for Environmental Movements visited the Seoul Central District Court in the evening of June 10 and submitted a petition to arrest nine Lotte Mart and Homeplus employers and employees involved in the production and sale of humidifier sterilizers that have caused the death of hundreds of people.

“This catastrophe, which has resulted in the death of 464 people as well as 2,339 victims, is comparable to serial killing but the companies that must be responsible for it are doing nothing at all,” the organizations condemned, adding, “We are calling for former CEOs of Homeplus and Lotte Mart to be jailed, the Lotte Group and the Samsung Group, their parent companies, to be investigated.”

In addition, they aksed SK Chemicals and Aekyung to be severely punished as the former produced the highly toxic humidifier sterilizers for the first time and the latter caused the second-largest number of deaths, respectively.

The petition was signed by more than 1,300 South Koreans during their signature-seeking campaign that continued for 34 hours until 10:00 am, June 10.