Tag: protests

This is a really bad situation and I had no idea that South Korea does so little to return children that are abducted:

On a cold Nov. 30 afternoon, when temperatures nosedived to minus seven degrees Celsius in Seoul, bringing with it the nation’s first cold wave alert of the season, John Sichi was walking on a treadmill in front of Dongdaemun Design Plaza in central Seoul. Undeterred by the biting winds, the U.S. citizen walked for nearly four hours.

Near the treadmill stood a placard reading, “Please let me see my children,” and a life-size cardboard cutout of his two kids ― a 5-year-old boy and 3-year-old girl.

People walking by approached him ― some with curiosity and some with empathy ― to see why a man would be walking on a treadmill in freezing weather. A woman handed him 10,000 won, probably assuming it was a fundraising campaign.

Sichi has been staging the treadmill protest since October in various spots in Seoul, in a desperate effort to find his missing children who have been allegedly abducted by his Korean wife.

His demand is simple: The Korean government should enforce court orders from both the U.S. and Korea that the children should be returned to the U.S.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It was a nice fall day which in Korea means it is a perfect time to have a protest:

Tens of thousands of conservative and progressive activists staged large-scale rallies in downtown Seoul on Saturday, chanting opposing slogans about sensitive political issues. The demonstrations ended without clashes.

Right-wing activists, including members of the far-right Liberty Unification Party, held a rally in Gwanghwamun against what they call pro-North Korea sympathizers.

Police estimated about 32,000 activists participated in the event.

Progressive activists also held an anti-government protest on nearby streets, with police projecting about 16,000 people joined the rally.

The massive rallies caused severe traffic disruptions surrounding main roads spanning from Gwanghwamun to City Hall in central Seoul.

Both sides expressed contrasting voices about sensitive political issues throughout the rallies.

Conservative activists called for the formal arrest of opposition leader Lee Jae-myung over his alleged involvement in a corruption-laden urban development scandal.

Liberal activists, meanwhile, denounced the prosecution’s probe into Lee as “political revenge” and called on President Yoon Suk-yeol to step down.

Police initially stayed on alert to brace for possible clashes between the two sides near Samgakji, close to the presidential office in Yongsan, but there were no physical scuffles or violence.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

You would think all these people would have something better to do then make a fool of themselves over this issue:

 Scuffles plagued the site of a statue of a girl symbolizing victims of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery Sunday night as members of a right-wing organization raided the site and clashed with anti-Japanese activists guarding the statue.

The four-hour melee happened as members of New Freedom Solidarity held a surprise rally near the statue in central Seoul around 10 p.m. Sunday, demanding the breakup of a civic organization established to help victims of the sexual enslavement of Korean women during Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule.

Clashes continued past midnight as the leader of the right-wing organization attempted to force his way near the statue and anti-Japanese activists tried to keep him away. One protester was taken to the hospital for exhaustion.

An anti-Japanese activist was also taken into custody for pushing a police officer at the scene.

Although police separated the two sides with police lines, they continued to clash with loudspeakers and caused inconvenience to people nearby before the conservative group finally left the area at around 2:10 a.m. Monday.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The Yoon administration is demonstrating that all the delays of road access to the THAAD base during the Moon administration was political. This summer access to the site has greatly increased after President Yoon’s election as this recent delivery further demonstrates:

The military delivered equipment to a U.S. THAAD missile defense unit here in the wee hours of Sunday, a civic group said, as the government moves to normalize access to the base despite local residents’ opposition.

The equipment from the U.S. Forces Korea and the South Korean military were brought onto the base in Seongju, 220 kilometers south of Seoul, at around 1:30 a.m., according to the group opposed to the installation of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) unit.

It marked the first time for such items to be delivered on the weekend since May 2021, when the USFK and the defense ministry began sending equipment to remodel troops’ barracks. Around 10 vehicles were delivered on Sunday, including a bulldozer, a fueling vehicle and a van.

Local residents rushed to the site to protest after hearing the sound of the delivery vehicles.

The civic group said the police and the defense ministry had informed them there would be no deliveries during the weekend but used the cover of darkness to make a sudden delivery.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but according to the article ground movements to the THAAD base has increased up to five times a week.