This past weekend we saw and recorded a staggering amount of information on the May Day protests in Seoul. We’ve condensed a basic timeline and media overview until we can get a proper episode up about it.

Friday May 1st, 2009

3 PM – Gathering at Yeouido

Friday saw a large gathering of protesters at Yeouido park in Seoul.  May Day is a classic day of protest and saw people gather under a variety of banners and causes, with the issues of the Yongsun Tragedy and criticism of the current president at the forefront.  Over 16,000 protesters gathered to listen to speeches, songs, and performances. 

5 PM – March

The gathering ended with the protesters march en mass through the main street adjoining the park, over the bridge, into down town and onto subways to meet for the next set of protests.  At this point we had yet to see more than a dozen police officers, but were told that in years past violence had flared when the protesters reached central gathering points.

6:30 PM – Clash at Jongno

As we emerged from the subway to rejoin the protesters we found a group of them shutting down traffic on Jongno, a major Seoul artery.  This act was quickly interrupted as police caught everyone off guard with an initial charge into the crowd.

Over the next hour repeated scuffles broke out between police and protesters.  The protesters would gather, chant, and march into the street blocking traffic.  The police would gather opposite them, and then charge full force into the demonstrators, scattering them.  After the third major break there were few protesters left.

10 PM – Myong Dong Riot

We heard that the protesters were gathering again at Myong Dong and we headed over to see what was happening.  By the time we arrived the police had been forced back to the main station entrance. They were being battered by a group of masked protesters who had broken up the pavement and were rushing forward in lines to assault the police.  Crowds of supporters, protesters and ordinary people out shopping on a Friday night lined the streets as police threw tear gas into the crowds.

The police continued to move in at this point, entering the remaining intersections as additional media showed up and ended up pinned between the police and rock throwing protesters.  At one point a journalist nearby us was hit by a rock thrown not by the protesters, but by police, and went down.

11:30 PM – Dispersion

The police blockaded the subway entrances and then eventually suppressed the last of the protesters around 11:30 pm.  The crowds left to take the last trains home and the streets cleared out.

Saturday May 2nd, 2009

Saturday was the one year anniversary of the vigil and protests that had consumed Seoul over the president’s decision to reopen Korea to US beef imports.  We had been told these would be much bigger than the previous day’s protests.

4 PM – Seoul Station Rally

The initial rally was at Seoul Station, a large shopping and transit complex near the government centers in Seoul.  This gathering saw a number of speeches, but not in the same numbers as the previous day’s gathering in Yeouido.  In addition the police deployed in staggering numbers.  For the majority of the rally the police outnumbered the gathered protestors.

Thi
s was a fairly peaceful section of the protest with only a couple of arrests a single seemingly unrelated brawl.

7:30 PM – Hi Seoul Incident

We moved to follow the protesters to the Hi-Seoul festival.  A cultural festival whose slogan was ironically “HOPE, LOVE”.

We watched as Buddhist performers mingled with protesters in a march down the central street.  At the end they arrived at a massive outdoor area where a techno remix of the Smurf’s theme song blared.  At this point the waiting police moved in and pushed everyone, protester, performer, civilian or otherwise off the street and into the main festival area.  Here the crowds mixed, danced, and waved flags until a group of front running protesters charged the stage.  The music stopped and the crowd went wild.

At this point the police swept in and started rounding up everyone they could see.  It was just shocking to see hundreds of police in black armor running into a crowd that had been dancing to a song from a children’s cartoon moments before.

Of the two days this is where we started to see a lot of police actions that seemed less and less justified.  One of the most poignant examples of this was a gathering of old people who were simply sitting around a candle vigil of protesters killed in previous events.  The police slowly moved in as people played music and sang until they could start grabbing people and start moving them out. 

The sweeps continued with the police grabbing more and more people who appeared to be simply young students or just regular civilians passing by or there for the festival.  Our translator told us again and again, “look, the police are grabbing normal people.  they’re saying ‘why are you arresting me, I have done nothing but stand here.’”

10 PM – Myong Dong Riots II

A number of the media recognized us from the previous day and came over to tell us that they had heard the protesters would be making a move to Myong Dong again.  Following their advice we headed over to arrive, once again, in the thick of a confrontation between police and protesters.

Again the protesters lobbed rocks, bottles, umbrellas, and anything that wasn’t nailed down at police.  Tensions seemed to be running especially high and we would see the police yell or throw objects back into the crowd.  Twice we caught caught in the middle as police charged a shopping mall filled with bystanders that had been shopping moments before.  It was horrific to see the wall of riot shields crash into the crowd and hear screaming.  Time and time again we saw the police round up what seemed to us to simply be normal people out shopping.

After hours of a back and forth with police chasing down protesters the intersections finally began to clear.  We started interviewing people involved to get a better grasp of what was going on.  Little of what we had seen made sense, but people were eager to share their stories.

We’re working to translate them now and will have them up as soon as we can.