[Namgung Jin-woong = timeid@ajunews.com]
Firebombs, rocks, and steel pipes have been common in violent clashes between riot police and anti-government protesters for decades in South Korea's turbulent political history.
No more this year as protesters use candles, music concerts, cultural performances, and flowers to press their demands for the resignation of President Park Geun-hye for her role in a corruption scandal that has rattled South Korea for weeks.
Through their peaceful and well-organized candle-lit rallies that have descended in central Seoul every week since late October, South Korea showed a mature civic awareness.
[Photo by Namgung Jin-woong = timeid@ajunews.com]
For the first time, protesters were able to come close to the presidential Blue House for noisy protests in a peaceful standoff with police. Both sides followed guidelines issued by a court, a scene which was unthinkable in the previous protests that used to end up in tear gas, violent clashes, and arrests.
Old-time fighters and masked college activists hurling firebombs and rocks were gone, making way for young girls, high-school students, middle-aged citizens, and housewives marching hand-in-hand with their children.
"I've brought my kid to a historic scene because I think this rally will be a good lesson to him," Lee Kang-yol, a Seoul citizen in his 30s, said in a television interview, guiding his son to a candle-lit rally in Seoul on Saturday.
[Yonhap News Photo]
Police buses, which had been torched or smashed with steel pipes in the past, formed tight barricades around the presidential residence, but they were kept intact with their windows and sides plastered with colorful flower stickers.
"It's far better to see flower stickers instead of beating," police chief Lee Chul-sung said, praising a peaceful method adopted by rally organizers who have issued an order to avoid clashes with riot police.
For Saturday's rally, a civic group donated tens of thousands of flower stickers and real flowers conveyed to riot police.
[Aju News DB]
Aju News Lim Chang-won = cwlim34@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
