Lee Hae-rin is a City Desk reporter at The Korea Times, covering social issues, tourism and taekwondo. She is passionate about speaking up for the rights of minorities, including women, LGBTQ+, people with disabilities and animals as well as discovering the latest makgeolli trend in town. Feel free to reach her at lhr@koreatimes.co.kr.
Bereaved families urge passage of special act to ascertain truth behind Itaewon tragedy
Bereaved families of the Itaewon tragedy hold a press conference on Thursday near Noksapyeong Station, Yongsan District, where they installed a memorial a year ago and which has since been relocted. The station is just 400 meters from the disaster site. Yonhap
By Lee Hae-rin
The bereaved families of the Itaewon tragedy urged lawmakers to pass a special act by the end of the year before the 21st National Assembly terminates in order to ascertain the truth behind the national tragedy that claimed 159 lives during the Halloween festivities of 2022.
On Thursday, 412 days after the tragedy, the bereaved families' group and activists gathered where they set up a memorial on this day last year and held a press conference at 1:59 p.m., in order to remember the 159 lives lost due to the tragedy.
“Here, Noksapyeong is where we, the bereaved families, came out for the first time to speak out about our sorrows,” said Lee Jeong-min, the leader of the group set up by the families during a press conference near Noksapyeong Station, 400 meters away from the site of the tragedy.
The group, disappointed by the government's setting up of an inadequate memorial site and lack of genuine follow-up measures, decided to set up a memorial center here with photos and the names of the victims amid struggles with local municipalities.
Bereaved families of the Itaewon tragedy victims mourn at a memorial they installed near Noksapyeong Station, 400 meters from the disaster site in central Seoul, Dec. 14, 2022. Korea Times photo by Choi Joo-yeon
“The enactment and proclamation of the special act is only the first step towards truthful mourning and building a safer society … We urge the National Assembly for the last time. We urge the rival parties to pass the special act together during the extra plenary session on Dec. 20,” Lim Ik-chul, another bereaved family member said as he read a statement.
Then the group made an 8.5 kilometers march from Itaewon to the National Assembly as the rain poured, calling for the legislation to be passed.
Bereaved families of the Itaewon tragedy and activists march to the National Assembly from Itaewon, Seoul, Thursday, to urge for the passage of a special act that would grant the launch of an independent investigation body to ascertain the truth behind the national tragedy that claimed 159 lives. Yonhap
In April, 183 opposition lawmakers proposed a special act that would ensure an independent investigation body would be formed so as to ascertain the root causes of the disaster and grant the bereaved families the opportunity to participate in the process.
The bill has been pending at the National Assembly’s legislation committee for 90 days without further discussions due to opposition from ruling lawmakers. However, the bill was automatically submitted in a plenary session through a fast-track process and now sees the possibility of being passed by opposition lawmakers who hold a majority of seats in the Assembly.
Meanwhile, the ruling conservative People Power Party (PPP), which claims along with the government that state-led investigations have already ascertained the root causes of the tragedy, opposed the bill, claiming that it fails to specify whom to acknowledge as victims, who would be entitled to compensation and that the selection of the members of the fact-finding investigation body could be one-sided.
On Monday, ruling party secretary general Rep. Lee Man-hee and 12 other PPP lawmakers proposed their own bill that has no mention of fact-finding investigations but focuses instead on compensation for bereaved families and Itaewon merchants whose businesses were hit hard by the disaster.
However, the bereaved families' group refused to accept the PPP’s bill proposal, arguing all they wanted from the special act was to ascertain the truth behind the disaster and prevent a recurrence of such a devastating tragedy.