Johnny Somali (real name: Ramsey Khalid Ismael) is an American hate streamer who travels to other countries specifically to harass and degrade locals for online attention. His racism and cruelty have made him one of the most despised people on the Internet.
In Japan, Somali's behavior was particularly vile. He livestreamed himself harassing locals with racist taunts, threatened to "nuke" Japanese people, and mocked Hiroshima and Nagasaki victims while making repeated references to atomic bombs. After being arrested and deported, he showed his true character by doubling down, posting images of atomic bombs and making anti-Japanese statements on social media, earning himself a five-year ban from the country.
The hate-streaming provocateur then targeted South Korea, where he desecrated memorials to "comfort women" statues commemorating victims of World War II sexual slavery — while livestreaming to his viewers. His harassment campaign continued at a 7-Eleven in Hongdae, where he terrorized store employees and customers with abuse, creating such a disturbance that workers had to beg him to leave. These incidents led to multiple police reports and an indictment for obstruction of business.
Somali's toxic behavior has finally caught up with him. In this video, attorney Andrew Esquire, who's familiar with Asian legal systems, said Somali's legal bills alone will ruin him.
Johnny is facing multiple crimes in Korea. So he has this obstruction of business one, which was just indicted on, which means it was sent to the prosecutors, and the prosecutors recommended this for trial. That's charge number one.
But the police are still investigating several other charges against them, including the drug use, including assault, including deep fakes, including, you know, all sorts of other things that people are now reporting.
So he can be charged, just because he got this first offense, he can still go through with charges and trials on all of those other issues. And if he's found guilty of this first offense for the second, third, fourth, and fifth, he will be a convicted criminal. He will be a repeat offender. So when they look at that scale of maximum punishment to minimum, that's going to send it flying to the top, because he is now a repeat offender. He's now a convicted criminal.
The harassment streamer's antics have caused national outrage in Korea. Esquire said "literally members of parliament here are bought in on this. They're, in fact, recently drafting new bills in parliament specifically to deal with Johnny Somali type scenarios in the future."
The financial consequences could be devastating for Somali, who was previously banned from Japan for five years after his xenophobic stunts. Legal representation in Korea could reach "six figures" in US dollars, according to Esquire, and he's now trapped in the country during proceedings.
"They're looking at this and saying, yeah, we kind of need to give some severe punishment here."
