Thousands of gay rights supporters yesterday celebrated under a heavy police guard in the South Korean capital as they marked the city’s first Pride parade in three years after a COVID-19 hiatus.
Police were on alert as church-backed counterdemonstrators rallied in nearby streets, highlighting the tensions surrounding the rights of sexual minorities in the deeply conservative country, but there were no significant scuffles or disruptions as of yesterday afternoon.
Revelers wearing or waving rainbow banners cheered during speeches and swayed to music from a stage in front of city hall at the Seoul Queer Parade, which promotes equality for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people.
Photo: AP
Police established perimeters to separate them from conservative Christian protesters, also numbering in the thousands, who held up banners and chanted slogans opposing homosexuality as their leader shouted prayers into a microphone pleading that God “save the Republic of Korea from anti-discrimination legislation.”
Some of those protesters denounced Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon over the city’s unwillingness to block the “lewd” Pride parade.
Gay rights advocates are also unhappy with Oh, who in an interview with a Christian newspaper last week said the city might prohibit the Pride event from using the city hall plaza starting next year if this year’s participants “exhibit indecent materials or overexpose their bodies.”
Thousands of police officers from nearly 60 units were deployed to watch the demonstrators from both sides, said Kim Man-seok, an official at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency.
Police did not immediately provide a crowd estimate, but had previously forecast a turnout of about 40,000 for the dueling events.
Participants in the Pride parade later planned to march toward Seoul’s main train station, about the same time that counterprotesters were planning to march in nearby streets.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday declared martial law in an unannounced late night address broadcast live on YTN television. Yoon said he had no choice but to resort to such a measure in order to safeguard free and constitutional order, saying opposition parties have taken hostage of the parliamentary process to throw the country into a crisis. "I declare martial law to protect the free Republic of Korea from the threat of North Korean communist forces, to eradicate the despicable pro-North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people, and to protect the free
France on Friday showed off to the world the gleaming restored interior of Notre-Dame cathedral, a week before the 850-year-old medieval edifice reopens following painstaking restoration after the devastating 2019 fire. French President Emmanuel Macron conducted an inspection of the restoration, broadcast live on television, saying workers had done the “impossible” by healing a “national wound” after the fire on April 19, 2019. While every effort has been made to remain faithful to the original look of the cathedral, an international team of designers and architects have created a luminous space that has an immediate impact on the visitor. The floor shimmers and
CHAGOS ISLANDS: Recently elected Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam told lawmakers that the contents of negotiations are ‘unknown’ to the government Mauritius’ new prime minister ordered an independent review of a deal with the UK involving a strategically important US-UK military base in the Indian Ocean, placing the agreement under fresh scrutiny. Under a pact signed last month, the UK ceded sovereignty of the Chagos archipelago to Mauritius, while retaining control of Diego Garcia — the island where the base is situated. The deal was signed by then-Mauritian prime minister Pravind Jugnauth and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Oct. 3 — a month before elections in Mauritius in which Navin Ramgoolam became premier. “I have asked for an independent review of the
LAOS: The bars of bustling Vang Vieng remain open, but information on the investigation into the deaths of six backpackers from suspected methanol poisoning is scarce The music is still playing and the alcohol is still flowing at the bars along one of the party streets in Vang Vieng. Inside a popular venue, a voice over the speaker announces a special offer on beers, as disco lights flicker on the floor. Small paper flags from nations across the world — from the UK to Gabon — hang from the ceiling. Young people travel from all corners of the globe to party in the small town nestled in the Laos countryside, but Vang Vieng is under a global spotlight, following a suspected mass methanol poisoning that killed six
RSS