SEOUL• A K-pop singer, who was deported and barred from South Korea for avoiding conscription by becoming an American citizen, should be allowed to return after 17 years in exile, a South Korean court ruled last week.
Steve Yoo was a hugely popular chart-topping singer in the 1990s, but that changed when he became a naturalised American shortly before he was to be called up for military service in 2002, automatically forfeiting his South Korean nationality and with it the obligation to serve.
Every able-bodied South Korean man is required to spend nearly two years in the military, often in remote areas along the border with the nuclear-armed North.
Service is widely unpopular but regarded as an essential duty and Yoo's move triggered widespread outrage.
When he visited South Korea, he was rapidly deported to the United States - he had spent much of his teenage years in California - and has been refused South Korean visas ever since.
Four years ago, he sued to challenge the denials and after losing twice in lower courts and mounting an appeal to the Supreme Court, the Seoul High Court ruled last Friday that it "retracts the refusal to issue a visa".
The decision paves the way for the former star to return to the South, but the foreign ministry said it plans to appeal.
Yoo, 42, has apologised repeatedly, but a survey this year showed that almost 70 per cent of South Koreans believe he should continue to be banned.
It "took many, many years to finally realise I could not please everyone," Yoo wrote on Instagram last month.
South Koreans' enduring resentment of him stems from his former star status, said Dr CedarBough Saeji, a specialist in Asian languages and cultures at Indiana University Bloomington.
Celebrities "live their life in the limelight", she said. "Yoo was popular with men, too, for his tough and cool image. He was a real role model for young men. When he decided to turn his back on his duty as a Korean man, it seemed to the public like he had taken their love and returned it not with continued idol-worthy behaviour, but with a slap in the face."
Previous court rulings in Yoo's case have said his return would "demoralise" troops and induce teenagers to evade conscription.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
