A week has passed since district officials demolished a protesters’ tent in front of Deoksu Palace near Seoul City Hall. In its place is a flowerbed surrounded by a wire fence, and riot police to keep protesters from reoccupying the area. The Jung-gu District Office has removed its year-long eyesore ― and deepened the plight of dismissed workers and the concerns of conscionable citizens.
The district cites, yet again, the need to keep “law and order,” saying it repeatedly asked the tent’s occupants to leave. But it is the officials themselves who violated the Constitution by infringing on the protesters’ lawful right to exercise freedom of speech.
A local court has also ruled that the protesters and their tent did not seriously hurt public interests. That’s common sense: the area is not a residential quarter but an office block mostly deserted after work hours and the protesters didn’t make much noise or create scenes. Some passers-by and foreign tourists might have raised their eyebrows because of the brief inconvenience, followed by understanding nods.
It is a common sight in a democracy that the most vulnerable people take to the streets as a last resort.
Most of those who said they felt uncomfortable, unpleasant and even unsettled seem to be the district officials, who probably envy the vast squares in Pyongyang or Beijing where there are no protesters ― or free speech.
It was little surprising then that Mayor Park Won-soon lamented the eviction on his blog, saying, “Humans should come ahead of flowers.” We can understand Park as a person, but not as an elected official: why couldn’t the mayor reverse the decision made by officials in lower administrative levels and allow the protesters to reestablish their facilities or, preferably, provide an alternative place for their demonstration to continue.
The more fundamental problem lies, as always, with the central government and its labor policy. President Park Geun-hye and the governing Saenuri Party promised during last year’s election campaigns to look into the mass layoffs and subsequent suicides of Ssangyong Motor workers, but changed their minds after the poll. The automaker is but one of dozens of companies who have dismissed employees or turned them into temporary workers for no justifiable reason, at least from the workers point of view. Park and her party must keep their promise to tackle this long-pending issue.
Law and order is crucial in a democracy. But when these basic administrative concepts are reduced to tools of only the powerful, a society loses the essential element of uncensored expression. Korea has fallen into this undesirable state over the past five years. President Park must stop any further descent.