Ten reporters assaulted by police in anti-FTA rally
Dong-A-Ilbo, Korea
Ten Reporters Assaulted by Police in Anti-FTA Rally
12 March 2007
A demonstration against the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA) planned by the Korean Alliance against the Korea-U.S. FTA (KoA) in downtown Seoul was canceled due to the preventive interference of the police as the eighth round of the talks that opened on March 8 nears its scheduled end on March 12.
Urban guerilla operations
The police thwarted the KoA in their attempt to stage a “First People’s Rally against the FTA,” which was to take place at Seoul Plaza in front of City Hall by mobilizing 18,000 riot police. The demonstrators had plans to march from the square to the Grand Hyatt Hotel.
After the rally was foiled, KoA members made sporadic guerilla attacks between 2:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. near such places as Sinchon, Seoul Station and the Gwanghwamun Intersection area. Ten protesters were arrested while seven policemen were injured.
The first attack was reported around Seoul Station by some 500 people. Then, at about 2:30 p.m., some 3,000 demonstrators gathered around Sinchon Station, blocked the eight-lane road, and started marching uphill to the Ewha Women’s University subway station. Two hours later, as they couldn’t proceed further because of a perimeter at the intersection set up by police, the participants left and reassembled at Gwanghwamun Intersection.
At 5:30 p.m., some 2,000 picketers began to hold a rally, barricading another eight-lane street between Gwanghwamun Post Office and the Kyobo Building. However, as the police moved to break them up using water cannons at 6:40 p.m., they left the spot after about ten minutes.
Civic groups outraged
Progressive organizations are registering serious complaints as the police have banned not only anti-FTA rallies, but also a march against the deployment of troops to overseas and a mourning march for Staff Sgt. Yoon Jang-ho, who was recently killed in Afghanistan.
The group known as Korean Action Against the Dispatch of Troops to Iraq announced on March 11 they were organizing a Korean “International Day of Action on the fourth anniversary of the US/UK led invasion of Iraq,” where a 2,000-strong crowd was expected, but police forbade them from assembling, rejecting both their registration applications, one last month and another earlier in this month.
The policed explained the ban, saying, “Since the road they are planning to march on is designated as a ‘principal road’ by the Law on Assembly and Demonstration, it could cause traffic congestion and inconvenience to citizens.”
The police have been prohibiting most of the massive demonstrations scheduled in downtown Seoul ever since the anti-FTA rally hosted by KoA in November last year had grown exceptionally violent. The KoA filed an appeal to the National Human Rights Commission on March 9, claiming that the national police was abusing its authority.
Meanwhile, during the standoff at Gwanghwamun Intersection around 6:40 p.m., about 10 press reporters and photographers were beaten by riot police. The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency issued a press release on March 11 to express their regret regarding the injuries inflicted on a reporter. In the announcement, the police said that in order to prevent a re-occurrence of such a situation, they would take measures, including intensifying education about human rights to their riot police forces; devising methods to quell illegal demonstrators safely; and establishing buffer zones for press staff during their operations.
Reporters Without Borders have called for an investigation: http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=21297
