By Kim Rahn
Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon was assaulted by a middle-aged woman at a subway station during a civil defense drill briefing Tuesday.
The mayor was being briefed at City Hall Station in downtown Seoul at around 2:16 p.m., with Seoul Metro staff giving a demonstration on how to use gas masks, when the attack took place, according to witnesses and city government officials.
The 62-year-old woman, identified as Park, suddenly approached the mayor who was sitting behind a table and hit him hard on the back twice, shouting, “Ppalgaengi! (communist) Step down!” at him.
“The mayor just sat defenseless. All he did was lean forward as the woman hit him in the back,” a photo journalist on the scene said.
Several officials stopped her and dragged her out. She kept calling him a communist while being pulled away.
“It happened so abruptly so no one could prevent it,” one official said.
After the attack, the mayor continued the session.
When reporters asked him after the briefing whether he was okay, the mayor jokingly said, “What happened?” as if nothing had occurred.
The drill was conducted to deal with a possible power failure following the massive blackout across the nation in September.
City officials said they don’t want the woman to be punished. But police said they will seek an arrest warrant for her for violence and interfering with the mayor’s official duty.
Previously, the woman attacked Rep. Chung Dong-young of the main opposition Democratic Party during a rally at Cheonggye Square in August.
In the rally on Aug. 15 about tuition cuts, the woman leaped at him, grabbed his hair and collar and called him: “The running dog of Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun! You communist!”