Parents, alumni plead for Baejae High baseball players as 6-month ban threatens pro dreams

Calls are growing for the reversal of a six-month competition ban imposed on Baejae High School's baseball team after players chanted inappropriate slogans at the Cheongnyonggi national high school baseball championship. A student rights group and Baejae alumni said Thursday that "excessive criticism of the students is spreading to the entire school," urging a review of the punishment and measures to protect the players.

The Student-Parent-Teacher Human Rights Protection Alliance held a press conference Thursday morning in front of the National Human Rights Commission of Korea in Jung-gu, Seoul, calling for an end to what it described as collective harassment and funeral-wreath protests targeting Baejae High students. The event was the first in a series of relay press conferences planned for the day, with subsequent stops at the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education and the Democratic Party of Korea headquarters in the afternoon.

About 50 people attended, including alliance members, Baejae alumni and members of the public.

At the press conference, Shin Min-hyang, the alliance's chairperson, said the group had organized three relay press conferences in a single day because "the students are in extreme distress right now," adding that "indiscriminate targeting and witch-hunting are seriously violating students' human rights."

Shin also said funeral wreaths placed in front of the school amounted to "threats and acts of terror disguised as protest," and called for a review of both the Korea Baseball Softball Association's six-month national competition ban and any disciplinary measures from the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education.

"The students' wrongdoing is something that should be addressed through education," Shin said. "Blocking their entry into professional sports or cutting off their futures is not consistent with the purpose of education."

She also said the parents of the students directly involved were refraining from media exposure to protect their children, and urged that the students "no longer be made the subject of political debate."

A woman in her 50s who attended the press conference said she came not as a parent of a Baejae student but as someone who had raised children of her own. "It makes me angry to think about what it would have been like if my children had gone through something like this at school," she said. "The parents directly involved must be going through even more, so I came to stand with them."

A Baejae alumnus in his 70s said the students had been swept up in the atmosphere of the ballpark when they chanted the slogans, and that the incident was being given an overly political interpretation. "Mistakes should be corrected through education — they should not be allowed to block students' futures," he said.

Another alumnus said that just as students have the right to study, baseball players have the right to compete. "The national competition ban is in effect a heavy punishment that affects college admissions and athletic careers," he said. "Many professional team scouts were at the game that day, and stripping the students of the chance to play is blocking their futures."

Earlier Thursday morning, around 10:30 a.m., Baejae graduates and parents gathered at the Korea Baseball Softball Association offices at Olympic Hall in Songpa-gu, Seoul. A planned press conference in front of the building was called off after parents discussed the matter and decided it could place unnecessary pressure on the students.

Instead, Kim Dong-yeon, chairman of the Baejae alumni association, submitted a petition to the association and read its contents aloud in the building's lobby. Kim offered "a sincere apology to the student athletes and alumni of Gwangju Jeil High School who were hurt during the Cheongnyonggi tournament," while also asking the association to "give our juniors the chance to recognize their mistake, reflect on it, and grow into better people."

"Please consider not only our juniors' present but also their potential and their future," Kim said. "We ask for leniency so that this one experience can become a lifelong lesson."

Dozens of people attended, including Baejae alumni association members, parents of current students, officials from a student sports human rights committee, and graduates in their 70s and 80s. Attendees chanted slogans including "Lift the punishment" and "What did the kids do wrong?" Graduate Lee Seok-gon, 58, said he had held back as long as he could before his frustration boiled over after watching the news coverage. "Handing down a six-month competition ban simply because the cheering was too aggressive is excessive," he said.

Parents of current students said the fallout had spread beyond the baseball team to the broader student body. A first-year student's parent, identified only by the surname Park, said posts were appearing in a parents' group chat describing students being verbally abused on public transit simply for wearing their school uniform. "The baseball team's problem is spreading to become a problem for all students at the school," Park said.

Another parent, identified only by the surname Kim, said baseball players had been missing classes due to investigations and fact-finding procedures since the incident, while other students were suffering significant psychological distress from the media presence and funeral wreaths outside the school. "Mistakes should be corrected through education — stigmatizing all the students is not the right approach," Kim said.

Meanwhile, the alliance has filed civil complaints with the Ministry of Education, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, the Office of the Prime Minister and the National Human Rights Commission, demanding protective measures for the students. The complaints cite serious psychological harm caused by the online spread of students' real names and photos, as well as the placement of funeral wreaths outside the school, and call for the deletion of personal information, psychological counseling support and the protection of political neutrality in educational settings.

A petition has also been submitted to the National Assembly's public consent petition system, calling for the withdrawal and reconsideration of what it describes as an excessive punishment for high school baseball players' everyday expression. The petition has cleared the threshold of 100 signatures required for public disclosure and is currently under review by the Assembly, which is expected to decide within seven days whether to make it public.