(Central Asia)
Below are pictures of a rally and concert at Cheongye Square in Seoul on December 10, 2005. The rally was in support of human rights for North Koreans.
After the student symposium earlier that afternoon, I met a friend in Yongsan and did not get to the rally site until after it had already started.
When I got to Seoul City Hall station, I had to wade through a crowd of people going to another NK human rights rally at City Hall Square. The City Hall rally was conducted by several Christian organizations including the Christian Council of Korea (CCK). It was only semi-coordinated with other NK human rights events going on that week. The CCK event drew about 10,000, which is not bad for a freezing December day.
I made my way North for a couple of blocks to Cheongye Square to find the Sunshine to the North rally already in progress. I missed Lefkowitz's speech to the rally (pictured at Oranckay*). But did get there in time to catch Kang Chol-hwan and the music.
*TIMEOUT: The picture of Lefkowitz at Oranckay's blog was taken at the Cheongye Square rally and Oranckay's post put him at the City Hall rally. It is possible that he spoke at both. I would certainly appreciate clarification from anyone who was there.
Here are the pictures:
Kang Chol-hwan addresses the crowd. It was mighty cold. Why can't we have our rallies in the spring?
Some of the crowd. I guess there were about 300 at the start of the rally. The crowd later grew to about 700-800.
Looking through the crowd, whom do I see? Its the man, the myth, Michael Horowitz.
Maya. For a K-pop singer, she has some pretty good pipes.
Insooni. As you may have guessed, she is half Korean. In the foreground is a yellow handkerchief most of the people in the crowd had. I believe that they were made by the families of South Koreans abducted by North Korea.
Among the performers there were 에픽하이 (Epik High), 마야 (Maya) and 인순이 (Insooni).
Bonus Pictures
As a bonus, I will show you correct and incorrect ways to treat the riot police kids.
Incorrect: Fighting the kids is right out. This was the group that you always see in the news for burning North Korean flags. There was a group of about 20 guys who were piggy-backing on the large rally at Seoul City Hall. While I don't agree with the government decision that you can burn an American flag but not a North Korean one (I frankly think that both should be legal), I don't see any need to provoke a fight, which is just what this group did.
Correct: Why not let them join in. You still get your point across and maybe a few of this kids will join your group once they get back to college. If you don't have enough money to hire a singer, you can form your own dance team. (If you were wondering about the black spots, I marked out any identifying marks in case they were still on duty.)
Remember folks, this is not 1982. Korea is a democratic country now and you don't need to fight the riot kids.
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