By Kim Rahn
Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon asked President Lee Myung-bak to grant a pardon to eight people convicted of violence during the clash between riot police and tenants over a redevelopment project in Yongsan, central Seoul, back in 2009.
The city government said Park sent a written proposal to the President Tuesday, asking him to consider releasing the former tenants and labor activists who are currently in jail.
It is the first time for a head of a local government to make such a proposal to the President, city officials said.
In the “Yongsan incident” on Jan. 20 in 2009, tenants and activists who refused to evacuate a building to be demolished in a redevelopment plan violently clashed with riot police during the latter’s raid. Five tenants and a police officer were killed in a fire, which the court acknowledged started from the protesters’ Molotov cocktails.
“The imprisoned eight people are underprivileged who became desperate after losing their residences due to urban redevelopment projects and faced forcible removal during a cold winter,” Park said in the written proposal.
“They are living in pain every day because of the incident. It is very regrettable that they have to take all the responsibility for it,” the mayor said.
Earlier in January, Park said during a memorial event for the third anniversary of the clash, “As a Seoul mayor in charge of city administration, I console the tenants who have lost their beloved family members and neighbors and apologize for it.”
Those convicts have been behind bars for about three years, with most of them being sentenced to four to five years in jail.
“In the proposal, we didn’t specify ‘when,’ as we didn’t aim at the special pardon usually made on March 1 Independence Movement Day. When to pardon is up to the President who has the authority to pardon, if he does,” city official Oh Seok-geun said.
“The mayor believes the redevelopment projects are problematic. The tenants risked their lives to protect their rights to live and right to reside. The arrested people were also breadwinners of their families, so the families have had difficulty in making ends meet since,” he said.
Regarding the possibility that former tenants in similar cases may ask Park for additional proposals if this one is accepted, Oh said, “The case of Yongsan followed with a huge aftermath. It is impossible to make such a proposal to the President for other cases. If people really appeal, we’ll have to review each case thoroughly.”
Announcing a plan to scrap big-scale urban redevelopment projects late last month, Park said he will ban inhumane, forcible removal of tenants at night, during the rainy season or in winter, in order to protect their rights.