As South Korea’s COVID-19 crisis surges to its worst level yet, the government is using stricter social distancing standards for rallies organized by conservatives while taking a permissive stance to leftist groups holding rallies.
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency applied a more rapid and tougher response to a rally held by conservatives, while not quickly responding to a recent rally held by a leftist trade union. This is according to online media outlet Newdaily, which obtained data from Rep. Cho Myung-hee of the main opposition People Power Party.
Recently, the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) held a rally in central Seoul where roughly 8,000 members participated. The purpose of the rally was to ask the government to raise the minimum wage. Among the demonstrators, three people were confirmed to have COVID-19.
On August 15 last year, Pastor Jun Kwang-hoon and other conservative leaders held an anti-government rally in Seoul. Noh Young-min, chief of staff to President Moon Jae-in, called them “murderers,” and the liberal media started to attack them by calling their decision to hold a rally “irresponsible.” President Moon Jae-in called Jun’s actions an “unpardonable act against the safety of the people” and vowed to “take decisive actions, including coercive measures” against the people responsible for it. This eventually led to the persecution on Pastor Jun, and he was detained multiple times for violating quarantine rules.
After last year’s rally, the quarantine agency conducted an investigation a day after it was held and asked the organizer of the rally to provide a list of participants after four days. The agency also asked mobile service providers to provide the communication history to find out the identities of people who were near the rally. They executed a search warrant at Pastor Jun’s Sarang Cheil Church within six days. They also traced people’s credit card usage to find the participants. The agency, on the other hand, asked for the KCTU’s list 14 days after it held the rally.
“They did not request the release of mobile phone communication information, which can be used to trace participants, and did not bring in key organizers of the rally for questioning,” said Rep. Cho. “The Blue House, which pressured last year’s rally by calling them murders, have shut their mouth on the KCTU’s rally and the confirmed COVID cases among people who attended it.”
The quarantine agency said it has no plan to acquire mobile phone communication records since they are tracing people who were at the KCTU’s rally if the labor union submits the full list of participants. The agency said they are not planning on doing this because it would not help them find out people who specifically participated in the rally and can violate their privacy. During last year’s conservative rally, the agency even recommended tracking down people who stayed around the location that the rally was held for more than 30 minutes.
“The government tracked the phone records of 10,000 people who participated in last year’s conservative rally to find them till the end, but there was no phone tracing for the KCTU protestors,” said PPP spokesperson Lim Seung-ho. Lim added that this clearly shows that the government has been using the quarantine for political purposes.
It was reported that the KCTU has delayed handing the list of people to the government. Yang Kyung-soo, head of the union, released a statement that said, “The spread of COVID-19 is because of the government’s quarantine failure, and is not because of our workers’ rally.” He argued that the “conservative media and politicians are trying to use this to create a witch hunt against us, and we will respond to this strongly.”
In response to this, Lim of the PPP said, “The KCTU, which plans for 1.1 million people to go on strike, is the one hunting people by taking people’s health as hostage.”
The KCTU held another rally in Sejong on July 21, and around 500 people attended. Currently, social distancing level one is applied in Sejong, which allows people to hold a rally with less than 500 people. In the Seoul metropolitan area, which is under level four, bans people from holding anything large than individual protests.
The KCTU is preparing to hold another rally with 1,200 people in Wonju, Gangwon, on July 23. In the same location, they will hold a 3,000-person rally on July 30. Wonju is currently under social distancing phase two, which allows people to hold a rally with less than 100 people. The KCTU is planning on separating participants by separating them into groups of 99 people and holding the rally at the same time.
Meanwhile, One Korea Network submitted Pastor Jun’s written testimony to the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, which held “The State of Religious Freedom Around the Globe” hearing on July 13.
“Under the guise of the coronavirus, Moon Jae-in suppresses the free democracy of the people and has imprisoned myself and others such as Governor Kim Kyung-jae and CEO Kim Soo-yeol, who has led patriotic rallies,” Jun wrote. “While the leftist politicians in South Korea, led by the Moon administration, allowed leftist union members to march without any interference from the government and allowed other businesses and organizations to gather, my church and our rallies have been unfairly targeted by this administration.”
