An American internet troll known as Johnny Somali has been sentenced to six months in a South Korean labor prison after a series of offensive stunts that included dancing on a memorial statue honoring World War II sex slaves.
The New York Post reports that Ramsey Khalid Ismael, a 25-year-old self-described online troll who operates under the name Johnny Somali, received his sentence on Wednesday from the Seoul Western District Court. The court ordered Ismael to serve his time in a specialized labor prison following months of behavior that prosecutors said was deliberately designed to harass the public and generate YouTube revenue.
Ismael’s conduct in South Korea included singing the North Korean national anthem in public, spilling noodles inside a convenience store, instigating multiple confrontations with strangers, and performing crude dance moves on the Statue of Peace, a memorial dedicated to the approximately 200,000 women forced into sexual slavery by Japanese soldiers during World War II. He broadcast all of these incidents on his YouTube channel.
The court indicted Ismael in November on charges of obstruction of business and violations of minor public order laws. During the trial, the court stated, “The defendant repeatedly committed crimes against unspecified members of the public to generate profit via YouTube and distributed the content in disregard of Korean law.” Prosecutors had originally sought a three-year prison sentence.
The trial, initially set for March 2025, was postponed after prosecutors added further charges alleging that Ismael had distributed AI-generated sexual content featuring a deepfake of himself with a female YouTuber. In addition to his prison term, Ismael was sentenced to 20 days of detention, banned from working at institutions that serve minors or people with disabilities for five years, and ordered to register as a sex offender for the same period. He was deemed a flight risk and taken into custody immediately after sentencing.
In January, Ismael drew additional attention by comparing himself to Otto Warmbier, the American college student who was imprisoned in North Korea in 2016, released in a vegetative state, and later died. Ismael wrote on X: “I am the Otto Warmbier of South Korea. A political prisoner wrongfully and falsely accused and made into a scapegoat by a tyrannical government. The truth will come to light soon.” In his X bio, he describes himself as a “Political Prisoner in South Korea on Trial for Freedom of Speech and Expression.”
Following his indictment, Ismael reposted videos on YouTube that he claimed showed the basis for his charges. In a January video titled “They Want me in Korean Jail for this…,” he appeared in a black robe and hood resembling Ku Klux Klan attire and provoked several confrontations. In one scene, a man yelled at him to “get out of this country” as Ismael continued to escalate the situation. The video also showed him making sexually abusive and racist remarks to passersby, including a shouting match inside a convenience store over Israel, during which he yelled “Free Palestine” before both men were ejected by an employee.
A second video, posted in March and titled “I’m Facing Charges for Dancing in Korea (with TTS),” showed Ismael and another man causing a disturbance on a bus. The pair twerked in the aisles while music blared from phone speakers and viewers’ comments were read aloud by text-to-speech software. When confronted by passengers about his behavior, Ismael ignored a woman who raised the issue of bus etiquette and instead began talking about the history of North and South Korea. Police removed both men from the bus.
Ismael then walked to the Statue of Peace, where he performed sexual dance moves on and in front of the memorial, kissed the statue, and placed his beanie on the head of the young girl depicted sitting in a chair.
Ismael has previously made similar claims about being persecuted for free expression in Japan, where he was fined $1,257 for disturbing the peace by playing loud music at a restaurant, according to the BBC.
Read more at the New York Post here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of AI, free speech, and online censorship.
