By Lee Kyung-min
At least 100 professors from Seoul National University (SNU) plan to participate in the weekend candlelit protest to demand that President Park Geun-hye resign over the influence-peddling scandal involving her confidant Choi Soon-sil, they said Thursday.
The SNU faculty are the first group of professors to take to the streets. And this is also the first action of its kind for SNU professors since the April 19 pro-democracy uprising in 1960 against the Syngman Rhee administration.
“We could no longer sit on the sidelines amid the current turmoil that continues to ail this nation,” said history education professor Yu Yong-tae who leads the SNU chapter of Professors for Democracy, a group of liberal professors.
“A total of 728 SNU professors signed a statement denouncing the Park administration regarding the Choi scandal earlier this month. Some agreed we need to raise our voices as professors. Some said they would come with family members. We expect both undergraduate and graduate students will also participate,” he added.
Besides SNU, at least 200 more professors from universities nationwide, who are members of Professors for Democracy, are expected to join the street rallies as individuals.
“We sent letters to about 2,500 professors and researchers, and 200 of them confirmed they would participate in the rally,“ an official of the group said.
More than 1.5 million people are expected to gather in the Gwanghwamun area near Cheong Wa Dae for this weekend’s rally, the largest number since the rallies began, Oct. 29, when more than 50,000 people gathered, according to rally organizers.
The organizers planned marches and gatherings at locations within 200 meters of the presidential office, but police plan to ban them, citing traffic chaos. The organizers will ask a court to suspend the ban. In previous cases, local courts ruled in favor of the organizers, saying the protests were nonviolent.