Posted on 08/25/2003 7:23:58 AM PDT by AmericanInTokyo
Title: Anti-North Korea protest sparks Scuffles (Started by North Korean reporters) at World Student Games in S. Korea
TAEGU, S. KOREA: Scuffles broke out at the World Student Games in South Korea Sunday as a group of North Koreans broke up a peaceful (anti-Kim Jong-il) protest outside the press center here.
About 100 riot police and another 40 police officers moved in as four members of the North Korean delegation charged about a dozen protesters demonstrating against Pyongyang’s communist regime. Norbert Vollertsen, a German activist who had appeared at the demonstration wearing a neck brace and supported by crutches, collapsed to the floor and was later taken, in obvious distress, by trolley to a nearby ambulance.
Vollertsen was midway through an anti-North Korean speech when four members of the Pyongyang press delegation pushed through the crowd of reporters to break up the demonstration. The melee spread across the forecourt of the press centre and then inside the building as the North Koreans extricated themselves from the fighting and ran back to their offices. No arrests were made. North Korea had threatened to pull out of the Games, only their second multinational competition in South Korea since 1948, after its flag was burnt during protests in Seoul.
The team only agreed to make the trip here, 300 kilometres (190 miles) south of Seoul, when South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun expressed regret for the incident. The demonstration on Sunday, organised by a coalition of groups protesting against North Korea’s nuclear drive, had intended to accuse local media of paying too much attention to the North Koreans in their news reports. The protesters held up photographs of emaciated children and banners reading “Down with Kim Jong-Il, rescue our brethren”, referring to North Korea’s reclusive leader. “Local news media are focusing on covering North Korean athletes and their supporters, isolating 170 other participating countries,” said a statement released ahead of the protest. “This international sporting event is being utilised by North Korea for its political propaganda.” —AFP
(AIT Note: I am reminded of the (many) past attacks committed suddenly by groups of enraged North Koreans on American military in the DMZ and at other locations, because if they did not attack and protect the image of the "Great Leader" they themselves may face execution upon returning to Pyongyang).
Sure. In America journalists are always like these guys, right?
I hope somebody saves the photographs so that these secret policemen can be found, tried and executed after the coming fall of Kim Jong Il.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Pinging the guy who runs Taglinus FreeRepublicus (also see #42 for GATOR NAVY's just in case you haven't seen that one)
Various interests, some buried and others bold, do not apppear to appreciate the truth being aired about North Korea.
That would explain why my mid-vacation prediction for the second Korean War fell flat.
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