South Korea: hundreds of disability rights defenders stopped from protesting, many detained
Event- Country
- Korea, Republic of
- Initial Date
- Jan 20, 2023
- Event Description
On 20 January 2023, to commemorate the death anniversary of the two older persons with disabilities who had died in 2001, SADD and over 300 disability rights defenders undertook their subway-taking campaign at Oido Station, Seoul Station and Samgakji Station on line four of the Seoul subway system. Hundreds of police officers and dozens of Seoul Metro employees were posted at each of these stations to prevent the disability rights defenders from boarding the subways and holding their peaceful protest. In the course of blocking the protesters from undertaking their protest, the police officers held them in the three stations for three hours. The Seoul Metro again obstructed the protest by having subway trains pass through these stations without stopping and made similar announcements in the subway stations concerning the protests as on 2 and 3 January 2023. After three hours, the protesters at other stations were allowed to board the subway to travel to Samgakji subway station where a press conference was planned to take place, but under the condition that protesters handed to the police their flyers and speaker equipment. After five hours, SADD informed the police that it had ended its actions for the day.
- Impact of Event
- 1
- Gender of HRD
- Other (e.g. undefined, organisation, community)
- Violation
- (Arbitrary) Arrest and Detention
- Intimidation and Threats
- Rights Concerned
- Freedom of assembly
- Freedom of expression
- Offline
- Right to liberty and security
- Right to Protest
- HRD
- Community-based HRD
- NGO staff
- WHRD
- Perpetrator-State
- Police
- Source
- Monitoring Status
- Pending
- Event Location
Latitude: 37.71201915287722
Longitude: 127.11760674242856
- Event Location
- Summary for Publications
On 20 January 2023, over 300 disability rights defenders, were obstructed by the police from holding a peaceful protest, some were temporarily detained in Seoul, South Korea.