Drinking, sleeping, urinating… The government that protected this ‘two days and one night demonstration’ of the Korean Confederation of Labor

• allforyouclick
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• on May 21, 2023

On the 16th and 17th, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions occupied the Sejong-daero area in downtown Seoul and held a demonstration. On nights when assemblies were not allowed, they were ‘homeless’ in India and had a drinking party. The main slogan shouted for two days and one night was ‘resignation of the Yoon Seok-yeol regime’, and opposition politicians also attended the demonstration. For two days, traffic in the downtown area was paralyzed, and about 100 tons of garbage piled up on the streets. Some even urinated on the stone wall road of Deoksugung Palace. But the police just watched helplessly.

The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions also committed various illegalities and evasion of the law for a two-day, one-night homeless demonstration. When the police did not allow the night rally, the rally continued in the form of attending the Halloween Disaster Cultural Festival. I was sleeping on the sidewalk at night when road occupations were not allowed. On the 17th, they blocked all 8 lanes of the road in front of the Seoul Regional Employment Office in Jangjang-dong. It was four cars, half of which the police gave permission to assemble. Due to their homeless protests, office workers and students in the downtown area complained of damage.

The police did not actively block the demonstration, saying, “There is no way.” Although the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions committed some illegal acts, it is said that the loose response to rallies and demonstrations during the Moon Jae-in administration was maintained. Jang Yeong-soo, a professor at the Graduate School of Law at Korea University, said, “The police and courts tend to neglect the demonstrations of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions without actually sanctioning them.”

Garbage piled up to the height of an adult – In front of the Dongwha Duty Free Shop in Sejong-daero, Seoul, where members of the KCTU construction union held a homeless demonstration for two days and one night on the 16th and 17th, garbage such as sponge mats for sleeping and food containers that members ate and discarded was as high as an adult’s height. piled up /Reporter Yujin Oh

On the 17th, 30,000 union members belonging to the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (according to the organizer’s estimate) occupied five of the eight lanes round-trip to Sejong-daero and staged a protest. They called Mr. Yang (50), the head of the Gangwon Construction Branch of the Construction Workers’ Union, who recently set himself on fire and died, as a ‘martyr’ and insisted that the Yoon Seok-yeol government’s investigation into violence (construction site violence) be stopped. Yang was under investigation for extorting money from a construction site. They effectively occupied the road for two days in a row, and the police diverted vehicles passing nearby. But the city center reminded me of a parking lot all day long. At around 3:20 pm, when the protests were in full swing, the average speed of vehicles around Sejong-daero was 1 to 5 km per hour. When the union played a song through the speaker, the noise reached 90 dB, exceeding the highest standard of 85 decibels ( dB ).

On the sidewalk in front of Koreana Hotel in Jung-gu this morning, bowls of cup noodles, alcohol bottles, cigarette butts, bottled water bottles, cans of beverages, and tissues left behind by union members were lined up. Around 1.5m of silver leaf mats on which they slept overnight were piled up on the road nearby. There were various alcohol bottles and plastic bags on the crosswalk across Sejong-daero, and the car on the way to work had to stop abruptly to avoid it.

At 7:00 a.m. that day, a sanitation worker in front of the Donghwa Duty Free Shop said, “There is so much garbage that we clean it from 5:00 a.m. and there is no end.” An employee of a private cleaning company hired by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions also said, “There is too much garbage and food mixed with it, so it is impossible to separate the garbage.” The Jung-gu Office dispatched 17 environmental sanitation workers to the assembly site from the dawn of the day. An official from the Jung-gu Office said, “(The amount of garbage collected) is about 100 tons, about the equivalent of 40 2.5-ton trucks.”

Doldam-gil and Jeongdong-gil of Deoksugung Palace in Jung-gu, Seoul suffered from a stench from dawn. Union members who had been protesting all night nearby urinated openly, giving off a sickening smell. It is a non-smoking area스포츠토토, but members who woke up homeless smoked in groups, so things looked blurry. Kim Mo (18), a student at Ewha Girls’ High School, said, “The road to school was covered with garbage and vomit at 7:30 am. The school even stopped classes for a while because of folk songs and shouting, she says. Some complaints were lodged at a nearby police box with union members drinking alcohol and behaving badly.

The city center was chaotic, but the police were passive. A police official said, “Since the regulations for nighttime assemblies are insufficient, even if an illegal assembly is held, there is no countermeasure other than notification later.

During the Moon Jae-in administration, there was also talk that the courts loosened most of the places and time restrictions for gatherings and demonstrations, and that there was no way to do anything. An official from the National Police Agency said, “The court lifted all restrictions on gatherings on major roads such as in front of the Blue House and Sejong-daero, which were previously banned, during the previous administration.” ” he said. According to the National Police Agency, there were 171 cases in which the police notified the banning of assemblies due to traffic inconvenience last year, but only one case occurred between January and May during the Moon Jae-in administration. Lee Ung-hyeok, professor of police department at Konkuk University, said, “During the Moon Jae-in administration, downtown Seoul became a lawless place as enforcement decrees related to protest equipment such as water cannons and gas trucks were scrapped.” The National Police Commission is not moving.”

Jang Ok-gi, chairman of the construction union, said at the rally, “I am proud of the construction union members who occupied this large road for 9 hours and fought for 2 days and 1 night.” One member of the union who came up to the platform said, “If more than 30,000 workers gather, of course there will be garbage, and you can have a quick meal and drink Yakju.”

Meanwhile, the city of Seoul decided to impose a compensation of 93 million won on the construction union for illegally using Seoul Plaza for homelessness and to file a criminal complaint.