Livestreamer Johnny Somali sentenced to jail in South Korea over video stunt

An American livestreamer has been jailed in South Korea after carrying out a controversial stunt for a video.

Johnny Somali, a 25-year-old content creator who had around 5,000 followers on YouTube, is known for making incendiary content, which has led to him being banned from posting on several streaming platforms.

The social media personality, whose real name is Ismael Ramsey Khalid, has been sentenced to six months in jail after kissing a statue representing World War Two sex slaves.

Authorities in Seoul, South Korea, charged him for public nuisance in November 2024 after he shared a clip of himself kissing and performing lap dances on a statue. He has been barred from leaving the country ever since.

A South Korean court convicted Khalid of multiple charges on Wednesday, including for being a public nuisance and distributing sexual deepfakes.

An example of a 'comfort woman' statue found in South Korea (YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP via Getty Image)

Several statues, known for depicting, 'comfort women', can be found across South Korea which usually depict a young woman seated in a chair. During World War I, an estimated 200,000 women around Asia were forced to be sex slaves for Japanese soldiers.

Many of these women were Korean, and some also came from China, the Philippines, Indonesia and Taiwan.

The statues were installed by activists to remember these women. They have also caused diplomatic tensions in the past, as South Korea has called for reparations from Japan for the women.

“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,” the court said, South Korean media reported.

According to The Korea Herald, prosecutors sought a three-year prison term however the judges gave him a lower, six-month sentence, while noting the ‘absence of severe harm to victims’.

A 'comfort women' statue in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, South Korea, in 2015 (Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)

He has also been barred from working with organizations that serve minors and individuals with disabilities after his release.

Khalid claimed he was unaware of the importance of the statues and apologised in 2024, saying he ‘didn’t understand the significance’ of the statues.

He also made videos of him challenging locals in South Korea to fight him, with several videos reportedly showing him being punched and chased along the streets.

He had earlier caused a scene on public transport, vandalised a convenience store, and streamed obscene videos in public, the BBC reports.

Khalid has also been accused of harassing people in Japan and Israel.

He was detained at a protest in Tel Aviv, Israel, earlier in 2024 after making inappropriate remarks towards a female officer, however he was later released.

In 2023, he taunted locals in Japan by making comments about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, among other things.