Stalwarts of the Seoul protest scene: conservative older folks who hate left-wingers, NK leaders and sexual freedom. pic.twitter.com/FRIc8IXeVn
— Alastair Gale (@AlastairGale) October 27, 2015
A group of university students protests in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul on July 29, 2015, demanding that Japan make a sincere apology for its wartime crimes during its 1910-45 colonial rule over Korea. The pickets say “Japan, a war criminal state, should apologize before history.” (Yonhap)
I wonder if these same protesters will go protest in front of the Chinese embassy as well and demand an apology for war crimes committed against Korea by the government responsible for it still in power to this day?
A member of the Solidarity for the Peace and Reunification of Korea, a progressive civic group, speaks during a rally in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul on July 16, 2015, to voice her objection to Japan exercising the right to collective self-defense. Japan’s ruling coalition pushed controversial security bills through the lower house that would allow it to exercise that right the same day. (Yonhap)
140 Samsung unit workers arrested after protesting merger http://t.co/bpoSsk59G4 #Samsung #Hanhwa #Techwin pic.twitter.com/Y43YVWJjk4
— The Korea Observer (@koreaobserver) June 29, 2015
Members of South Korea’s two umbrella trade unions rally over minimum wages in front of the government complex in Seoul on June 4, 2015. The unions are demanding that the government raise the per-hour minimum wage from 5,580 won (US$5.01) to 10,000 won. (Yonhap)
Members of civic groups stage a protest in front of the U.S. Embassy in Seoul on May 29, 2015, after U.S. Forces Korea said the previous day that a live anthrax sample that was accidentally sent to the U.S. Osan Air Base in the city of Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul, has been destroyed. (Yonhap)
Members of an anti-nuclear civic group shout slogans during a rally in front of the Nuclear Safety Commission, South Korea’s nuclear watchdog, in Seoul, on May 12, 2015, to demand that the commission close nuclear reactors. (Yonhap)
Members of civic groups tear a banner with a printed image of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s face during a rally in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul on April 28, 2015, to demand Abe offer an unequivocal apology over Japan’s wartime sexual enslavement of Korean and other Asian women. (Yonhap)
Members of civic groups stage a rally in front of the defense ministry in Seoul on April 10, 2015, to voice their objection to the possible deployment of a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in South Korea and the establishment of an integrated air and missile-defense system among the United States, South Korea and Japan to deter North Korea’s evolving security threats. (Yonhap)
The Korean authorities should have stopped these people at the gate of the airport and sent them home because it is illegal for foreigners to conduct political activity while visiting South Korea:
The Rev. Bill Bichsel, an 86-year-old Tacoma priest known for his acts of civil disobedience, has returned from a trip to South Korea to protest construction of a naval base there.
Just three months ago, Bichsel was seriously ill and in the hospital in Tacoma. But his health —while still frail due to a heart condition—improved to the point he was able to make the trip using a wheelchair.
He said his doctors didn’t try to stop him from traveling.
“They just shake their heads,” Bichsel said. “They know I’m going so they don’t make a big fuss.”
For nearly 40 years, the Jesuit priest known as “Bix” has protested against U.S. military programs and weapons. He’s been arrested dozens of times for trespassing during protests and jailed more than a half-dozen times.
He wasn’t arrested in South Korea, but he realized the 12-day trip could set his health back.
“I know I could go anytime,” Bichsel said.
He was weak upon returning Nov. 20, but has gotten stronger since then. And he was inspired by the trip.
Bichsel and nine other people —nearly all from the Puget Sound area—traveled to Jeju Island to commits acts of civil resistance against construction of a base by the South Korean Navy. The base has been under construction on the island off the southern tip of Korea for eight years. [Stars & Stripes]
You can read more at the link, but what gets me about the whole Cheju Naval Base issue is that the leftists complain about the base provoking China when the Chinese is busy making claims against Korean territory and the territory of other countries in the region and have constructed an aircraft carrier to help enforce those claims. If the Chinese were not making aggressive territorial claims this base would have never been built in the first place and the leftists have the nerve to condemn the ROK government for provoking China?
