 Riot police use water cannons to disperse “Hope Bus” protesters on a Busan street Saturday night. About 4,000 labor activists and civic group members gathered in the country’s largest port city for a fifth protest against massive layoffs by Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction. Korea Times |
By Kim Tae-jong
During an operation to disperse thousands of participants of a rally in Busan in support of dismissed shipbuilding workers, police apprehended 59 protestors, Sunday.
About 4,000 labor activists, civic group members and citizens gathered in the country’s largest port city to join the fifth round of the “Hope Bus” campaign to oppose massive layoffs by Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction (HHIC).
Police fired water cannons on the crowds as they attempted to march toward the company’s Yeongdo shipyard on Saturday night. When the march was blocked, protestors moved to BIFF Sqaure in Nampo-dong and continued the rally by holding various cultural events until Sunday morning.
It was the latest clash between Hope Bus protesters and riot police.
Officers said the apprehension was in line with its strict stance against illegal protests.
“Demonstrators illegally occupied the streets, and we also had to send them away as they could collide with members of conservative civic groups who opposed the Hope Bus campaign,” a police officer said.
In protest demonstrators claimed that the rally was legally registered and they simply tried to go on a peaceful march to the shipyard and meet a female activist who has been holding a sit-in atop a giant crane since January.
“The police ruthlessly suppressed the peaceful march, and they even used tear gas during the crackdown, and many demonstrators got injured,” a campaign organizer said.
Through the campaign, protestors have demanded the company withdraw its layoff plan and expressed their support for the female activist Kim Jin-suk, who hasn’t moved from the 35-meter-high point of a giant crane at the company’s shipyard in Yeongdo.
They also demanded the firm’s Chairman Cho Nam-ho sincerely accept an arbitration proposal by the National Assembly’s Environment and Labor Affairs Committee.
Lawmakers Friday requested Cho to re-hire all the dismissed workers during a parliamentary hearing.
“The negotiation between the labor union and management should be soon held to solve this problem, and we hope Cho will be held responsible,” the campaign organizer said.
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