Moon Dae-sung, a former taekwondo Olympic champion of South Korea, gestures to spectators as he carries the Beijing Olympic torch while being heavily guarded by police officers in the relay route near Bangidong, southern Seoul, Sunday.
/ Yonhap |
Olympic Torch Tours Seoul Amid Tight Security
By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
The Olympic torch relay was marked by heavy security in South Korea, as thousands of police guards contained sporadic protests in Seoul Sunday.
Nearly 8,300 law enforcement officers were deployed to cover the 24-kilometer route between Olympic Park and City Hall, as torchbearers dashed through the streets, blanketed by police guards in track suits while demonstrators showered them with a chaotic mixture of cheers and jeers.
Police seized a man who attempted to throw himself at a torchbearer along the route in Sinchon, southern Seoul, and also had to quash a violent clash between pro- and anti-China spectators.
The Olympic torch arrived in the country early Sunday on a chartered flight from Japan and was kept under tight security at the Lotte Hotel in downtown Seoul before moving to Olympic Park for the parade.
Activist groups ― including Christian conservatives, human rights advocates and North Korean defectors ― had vowed to disrupt the South Korean leg of the troubled round-the-world relay of the Olympic flame.
They were vowing to use the torch relay as a stage to denounce China's crackdown on protests in Tibet last month and its repatriation of North Korean defectors.
However, the anti-Chinese protestors were outnumbered at times by Chinese expatriates and students, who seemed just as enthusiastic in displaying their support for the Beijing Games.
A group of about 1,000 Olympic supporters, mostly Chinese nationals, gathered hours before the start of the torch relay at Olympic Park in southern Seoul, chanting slogans such as ``Go Beijing!'' and holding signs that included ``Tibet will always be our land.''
Tension mounted as scuffles broke out between the Chinese nationalists and some 200 human rights activists, who were holding a separate rally, forcing riot police to form a barricade between them.
At one point, a faction of demonstrators began hurling broken sidewalk blocks and rubbish at each other, prompting police to push them back. The clash left a news photographer bloodied after being hit over the head and another Korean activist hurt after being hit by a pipe wrench in the chest.
Concerns over disruptions arose as activists threatened to greet the torch relay with street demonstrations, with one coalition of civic groups even organizing a bicycle brigade of 100 activists scattered at different parts of the route ready to jump into the parade, prompting police to deploy heavy security measures such as escort vehicles.
Although assuring that the torch relay would be completed in relative calm, it also effectively hindered the festive mood by the time actor Yoon Tae-woong, the last torchbearer, brought the flame to City Hall around 7 p.m.
The Olympic torch left Olympic Park around 2:15 p.m. with Korean Olympic Committee (KOC) President Kim Jung-kil being the first of 80 torchbearers who carried the flame to City Hall.
The group of torchbearers included taekwondo gold medallist Moon Dae-sung, singer Jang Na-ra, who is immensely popular in China, and Yoon, who earned fame after appearing in the opening ceremony in the 1988 Seoul Olympics at 7 years of age.
thkim@koreatimes.co.kr
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