hankyoreh

April 18. 　

By Son Joon-hyeon

“Cutting off someone’s electricity in the middle of summer is a death sentence. We have lit dozens of candles, but it leaves us worrying about fire, and the corners that the candlelight cannot reach smell.”

It is July 28, and the kalguksu noodle restaurant “Duriban,” in the Hongik University (Hongdae) neighborhood, has gone without electricity for eight consecutive days. Its struggle with heat and darkness continues. As the site of a sit-in by local artists and civic activists opposing redevelopment in the Hongdae area that has been going for 210 days so far, Duriban has become known as “Little Yongsan,” an allusion to the disaster involving people made homeless by redevelopment in the Yongsan area last year.

On July 21 Namjeon D&C, the company carrying out the redevelopment in the area, cut the electricity cable leading to Duriban, saying that it was “stealing electricity from the neighboring construction site.”

Duriban had been temporarily using an electricity cable from a nearby subway construction site, with consent, after the redevelopment company removed electrical wiring in order to demolish the building.

The electricity was forcibly cut off, while Korea Electric Power Corporation’s (KEPCO) attitude was that forcible execution had taken place and that it was therefore unable to restore the supply.

As a result, more than 10 activists have been holding an indefinite sit-in protest at Mapo District Office since July 26. Ahn Jong-nyeo, owner of Duriban and head of a task force for victims of home demolition in the Donggyo neighborhood, urged the local ward office to solve the problem. Ahn said that when the electricity was cut off to an inhabited place, the people there should be designated as eligible to be provided with electricity as a basic living necessity, even if they had no money.

In response, Mapo District Office sent an official document to KEPCO demanding cooperation, while KEPCO stated that the electricity meter had been removed from the building last year following a legal request from the construction company and that the issue of restoring the electricity supply was a complicated one. It said it would conduct a legal examination and reach a quick decision.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]