Clash Escalates Between Candlelit Ralliers, Conservatives
By Kim Rahn
Staff Reporter
Clashes between protestors against American beef imports and conservative groups are showing signs of growing more violent and frequent as their conflicts spread to other issues.
A coalition of civic groups organizing the protests against the resumption of imports called on the police Tuesday to arrest members of conservative civic groups who allegedly assaulted a female protestor in front of the KBS building in Yeouido, Monday.
The coalition criticized police for refusing to investigate the conservative group members.
Monday evening, some 10 people from the groups, including the Korea Agent Orange Veterans Association and the Citizens' Coalition to Stop the Nuclear Development of North Korea, allegedly beat up a woman who was staging a one person rally to support the state-owned public broadcasting firm.
The conservative groups were also holding a demonstration, claiming KBS conducted inflated and biased reporting regarding the beef issue.
Upon news of the attack, hundreds of candlelit protestors at Seoul Plaza moved to KBS. The two sides clashed, and three people were injured and transferred to a hospital along with the woman.
``Group members beat her with wooden sticks and wielded them at passers-by who were trying to intervene,'' a leader of the coalition said in a press briefing.
He said that after the clash, they found wooden sticks, steel pipes, fire extinguishers, saws and gas masks in a truck owned by one of the conservative groups, claiming the groups committed premeditated violence.
The ralliers drove the truck to Yeongdeungpo Police Station and asked police to examine it as evidence of planned violence. ``However, police refused to do so. They also let the conservative group members who used violence go home without questioning. Police are abetting the groups' crime,'' the coalition leader said.
Police said the injured people were not hit with sticks but pushed to the ground while scuffling. They also said they did not examine the truck as there was no evidence that the ``weapons'' were used in the alleged attack.
In the meantime, the prosecution launched a probe into the MBC program ``PD Notebook'' following a request from the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.
The program aired a report about mad cow disease, and became part of the reason for the candlelit rallies. The ministry asked for the probe for defamation, claiming the program exaggerated the occurrence of mad cow disease and carried false information about the safety of U.S. beef.
Prosecutors plan to question the program producers over why and how they collected information.