A circulated online list containing the names of doctors who did not participate in the prolonged walkout and instead remained or returned to their positions has prompted the police to pledge action against the individual responsible for its distribution.

The National Police Agency released an official statement, stating that it will “strictly handle any acts that interfere with normal medical procedures.”

“Posting full names of trainee doctors returning to work and writing threatening comments to them can be considered as serious criminal offenses and will be criminally punished,” the National Police Agency said Thursday.

“We will respond quickly and strictly to this situation by conducting criminal investigations through apprehension.”

Recently, a post titled “A Complete List of True Doctors” was posted on Medistaff, an online community of doctors and medical school students.

The post detailed the number of trainee doctors remaining in 70 of South Korea’s training hospitals and their affiliations. Personal information was also revealed for some doctors, including their names and the schools that they attended. According to the police, the trainee doctors were mockingly called “true doctors” through the posts’ comments.

Regarding this list, another post was written on Blind, a workplace community app designed for anonymous discussions among employees in related fields, titled “I am a trainee doctor who wants to go back to work.”

The user wrote on the post that they “agreed to the government’s decision to increase the medical school student quota from the beginning,” but that they were participating in the strike because they had no choice.

“I can’t bear to handle the stigma and the harsh looks I will get from my seniors and peers, with whom I will spend the next three to four years,” said the author of the post.

Additionally, screenshots of a two-page document allegedly from the Korean Medical Association were posted on an online forum, DCinside, on Thursday.

The document, posted by an online user claiming to be a KMA insider, was allegedly directed toward a small number of KMA officials taking part in the joint strike and included specific instructions that ordered people to “create a list of people who did not partake in the strike” as a form of peer pressure.

“Since the goal is to pressure those who did not participate in the strike, blurring any personal information that makes it easy to identify the individuals is sufficient. Because if any information that helps to identify the individuals is blurred, there is no violation of the law,” the document reads.

According to police officials on Friday, the document is currently being checked to see if it was been written by the KMA.

The police plan to launch an official investigation once it is confirmed whether or not the KMA released the document. Meanwhile, the KMA denied the allegations and claimed it would file a police report against those who distributed the fabricated documents.

“The documents were fabricated, as we have never made documents like those before,” said Joo Soo-ho, chief spokesperson of the KMA. “We will take firm action against those who created and distributed the fake documents to defame doctors.”