Police clashes, political drama at memorial for South Korea Halloween crowd crush victims

SEOUL - A memorial event was held in Seoul’s central Gwanghwamun district over the weekend to mark 100 days since the

Halloween crowd crush in Itaewon on Oct 29, 2022.

Saturday’s event, which was meant to be a time for remembering victims of the disaster, was quickly marred by altercations with police, and politicians using the occasion to push their own agenda.

At least one family member of a victim was rushed to a hospital at around 2pm local time after collapsing during a stand-off with police. Squads of police pushed through the crowd in attempts to stop a memorial altar from being set up outside the City Hall library.

As police confronted the families, some among the crowd shouted “Where were you when kids were dying in Itaewon?” and “Stop pushing”.

“Look at these streets filled with police officers. They should have been in Itaewon on Oct 29, 2022,” said Mr Lee Jeong-min, chair of the minor Justice Party, speaking at the event.

The National Assembly investigation that closed in January found that the police were not in the area for crowd management or public safety on the night of the disaster.

The clash with law enforcement authorities took place despite the event having been reported to the district’s police in advance, in accordance with the law on public assemblies.

Soon after the altar was installed, the Seoul metropolitan office gave the families two days’ notice to remove it by Tuesday. The office also rejected the families’ request to hold the memorial event at the spacious and car-free Gwanghwamun Square, forcing them to move to the boulevard south of the square instead.

For three months, the families had mourned their lost loved ones at a memorial altar installed near the site of the disaster in Itaewon.

The families decided to move the altar to Gwanghwamun – which hosts rallies and marches regularly amid government ministry buildings, City Hall and the former presidential office Cheong Wa Dae – as a way of protecting businesses in Itaewon that have been suffering with fewer visitors.

Many at the memorial event wore blue to show their allegiance to the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea, blaming President Yoon Suk-yeol’s administration for failing to protect the young people.

They waved flags showing their affiliation with the party and chanted for Mr Yoon’s impeachment. There were also blue balloons and signs reading “Yoon Suk-yeol, resign in honour of the victims”.

Across the street from the memorial event, the Democratic Party staged a rally against Mr Yoon, with its entire leadership in attendance. The leaders took turns denouncing the ongoing criminal investigations into its chairman Lee Jae-myung as indicative of the President’s “dictatorship”.

“I was just over there at the service for Itaewon disaster victims, and I witnessed our country’s failure to explain all these young deaths,” said the party’s Floor Leader Park Hong-keun. “Who’s to blame? It’s President Yoon and his incompetence and self-righteousness.”

“This sea of blue tells me there is hope for democracy in our country, which once fought military dictatorships with candles,” said Mr Lee, who is caught up in a corruption scandal and due to appear before prosecutors for the third time later in February.

“Together with the great people of this country, I warn Yoon Suk-yeol and his dictatorial government: You can destroy Lee Jae-myung but not our democracy.”

The flags and signs held by those at the event showed their affiliation to Democratic Party regional committees from all over South Korea as well as organisers of past protests, including Boycott Japan and Candlelight Action. The latter is one of the groups behind a series of “impeach Yoon” rallies.

“Nothing has changed since Sewol,” said Mr Jang Dong-won, the father of a survivor of the 2014 ferry sinking which killed more than 300 people, most of them high-school students. “It’s heartbreaking to watch the same things hurt the victims of a terrible tragedy so many years later.”

On Sunday, parliamentary Speaker Kim Jin-pyo and the leaders of both parties, Mr Chung Jin-suk and Mr Lee Jae-myung, commemorated the victims of the Itaewon tragedy in a rare ceremony at the National Assembly.

Mr Kim said in his address that both the ruling and opposition parties “have come together with a determination not to repeat such a tragedy and to remember the fallen”.

Speaking at Sunday’s event, Mr Lee Jong-chul, the father of the late Lee Ji-han, a 24-year-old actor who lost his life in the crush, pleaded for keeping the memorial altar in place at Gwanghwamun. “We just want to mourn our children, with lots and lots of flowers,” he said, choking up.

On Oct 29, 2022, crowds of people crammed into a narrow alleyway in Itaewon, a Seoul neighbourhood known for its international cuisine and nightlife. Under the crush of the crowd, 159 died, most of them in their 20s and 30s. THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK