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Demonstrators

The US Embassy in Seoul’s Jongno District had been off limits to demonstrations until June 24, when the first legal demonstration was held in the area. During the demonstration against the THAAD deployment, participants created a “human chain” around the embassy, and the police largely cooperated with this legal expression of the demonstrators’ opinions.

On the afternoon of June 24, more than 3,000 demonstrators (as estimated by the organizers) participated in a march after an assembly called the June 24 Campaign for Peace and the THAAD Removal. Organized by the National Campaign to Stop the Deployment of THAAD in South Korea, the assembly took place at Seoul Plaza, in front of Seoul City Hall. Setting out from Seoul Plaza around 5 pm, the demonstrators marched past Sejong Street Intersection and Jonggak Station Intersection toward Jongno Police Station. Around 6:30 pm, the demonstrators reached the vicinity of the US Embassy. When the emcee on the truck at the head of the procession shouted into the microphone, “Everyone, we’re going to surround the entire US Embassy for the first time in history,” the demonstrators cheered and blew their horns. For the 20 minutes that the court had reserved for the procession, protesters circled the US Embassy twice while chanting slogans such as “THAAD out and peace in” and “We denounce Trump.” This was the first time for a legal demonstration to be held against the American government in front of the US Embassy. In Dec. 2002, demonstrators in a candlelight rally for Hyo-sun and Mi-seon, two schoolgirls who were struck and killed by US military vehicles, broke through the police line and created a human chain around the US Embassy.

The police had banned assemblies in the vicinity of the US Embassy according to Article 11, Clause 4, of the Assembly and Demonstration Act, which allows restrictions on assemblies within 100m of foreign diplomatic institutions in South Korea. But on June 23, the Seoul Administrative Court made a ruling that allowed for a legal demonstration. “June 24, when the demonstration is supposed to be held, is a holiday when no work is done at the embassy,” the court said, partially accepting the organizers’ request to overturn the police ban, on the condition that the demonstrators passed by quickly, in no more than 20 minutes.

The police mobilized a force of 59 companies, including more than 4,700 riot police officers, for the day of the demonstration, but they focused on helping the assembly and the procession go forward smoothly, rather than on controlling the assembly as they had in the past. A police line was set up around the wall of the US embassy, and behind that were positioned traffic police wearing light green vests that said “traffic.” The police did not use vehicle barricades. The riot police were only deployed to the sidewalk in front of the US Embassy in case of an unforeseen occurrence.

“Since there were no vehicles barricades or water cannons in sight and since we could only see traffic police aiding the procession, protesters seemed to be peacefully enjoying the procession instead of feeling intimidated,” said Ahn Jin-geol, secretary-general for People‘s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, who took part in the procession. In order to obey the conditional permit given by the court, protesters voluntarily dispersed around 6:50 pm, 20 minutes after arriving at the US Embassy.

By Park Su-ji and Heo Jae-hyun, staff reporters

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