SEOUL, Nov 12 — Controversial YouTuber and Twitch streamer Johnny Somali has been indicted for “causing a commotion” at a convenience store in South Korea, prosecutors said today.
They said American national Somali, whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael, is not allowed to leave South Korea because of a travel ban linked to the case.
“He was indicted on Monday without detention for creating a commotion at a convenience store in October,” a spokesman for the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office told AFP.
A convenience store employee reported Somali to the police on October 17 when he confronted a worker after being told not to drink alcohol inside the store.
He is also accused of making sexist remarks towards the worker.
Somali has dominated headlines in the country for a series of stunts, including kissing and twerking by a statue memorialising Korean victims of wartime sexual slavery—euphemistically called “comfort women”—by the Japanese military during World War II.
The incident, which appeared in a now-removed video on his YouTube channel, drew strong backlash and condemnation.
He later issued an apology.
“I want to apologise to the Korean people. I was not aware of the significance of the statue… It was just an entertainment for my audience,” he said in a video posted online.
Somali also caused controversy in neighbouring Japan for his behaviour, including taunting subway commuters about Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the two cities devastated by US nuclear bombs in 1945. — AFP
