PETALING JAYA, July 31 — Fans of K-pop girl group NewJeans, known as “Bunnies”, sent funerals wreaths to HYBE headquarters in Seoul to show support for ADOR CEO Min Hee Jin.
The wreaths were placed yesterday, in the protest that was organised by the NewJeans gallery on the online community site DC Inside and expected to carry on until August 2.
The gallery consists mainly of supporters of Min, who has been in conflict with HYBE.
The wreaths comes with messages such as “We will hold the company accountable to the end for not even considering protecting NewJeans”, “We pray for the humanity and ethics of HYBE to rest in peace” and “We declare the management standard of HYBE dead”.
The protest was controversial even before it began, as it coincided with a birthday event for Kim Chaewon, a member of the Source Music group, Le SSerafim, scheduled to take place at the same location on the same dates.
‘Fearnots’, or fans of Le SSerafim expressed their displeasure at the demonstrations, saying it would ruin the celebratory mood.
The feud began when parent label HYBE accused Min of staging a takeover of the company with different stakeholders, while she blamed HYBE for plagiarising NewJeans’ concept with their latest girl group, ILLIT.
Since then, numerous other related issues have added to the dissatisfaction of fans.
On May 30, the 50th Civil Affairs Division of the Seoul Central District Court ruled in favour of Min’s injunction request against NewJean’s parent label HYBE, stopping the label from removing her as ADOR CEO at the ADOR shareholder board meeting held earlier.
