Starship Entertainment has released a statement regarding legal action.

The statement provides an update on legal action taken in July and also reiterates future plans, including the agency’s previous statement on action that will be taken for manipulated photos in relation to MONSTA X’s Shownu.

Read the full post below:

Hello. This is Starship Entertainment.

We express deep gratitude to the fans who show lots of interest and love for the artists of Starship Entertainment.

We previously announced plans for legal action regarding the spread of false information, malicious comments, sexual harassment, and defamatory posts.

Afterwards, through active tips sent in by fans and our own monitoring, we collected posts with false information, sexual harassment, personal attacks, and defamation that are spreading online and on social media, and we signed delegation contracts with the law firms Ius&Lex and Sejong. We submitted legal complaints on some of these malicious commenters on July 4.

Suspects who wrote malicious posts were specified through investigation by the investigative agency, and some of them have been forwarded to the prosecution with recommendation for indictment.

All confirmed suspects will be punished through the due process, and we plan on carrying out civil action in addition to criminal punishment.

In addition, photos that were illegally manipulated in relation to Shownu have been spreading online and on social media recently. We plan on reporting the person who initially posted the photos and those who spread them to the police, and we will take immediate and strong action through our legal representative with a civil claim for damages on the basis of violating the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment, etc. of Sexual Crimes, circulating material deemed pornographic by the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection, etc., and violating personal rights.

Through continuous monitoring, we will continue to focus all of our efforts into protecting our agency’s artists to prevent additional harm, and we will continue to take strong legal action without settlement.

We thank all fans who love and support our artists, and we ask for fans to continuously show interest for the protection of the artists’ rights.

We once again express deep gratitude to the many people who support our agency’s artists.