A Taiwanese journalist was also surrounded and questioned: 'Are you Chinese?'

Protesters demanding a re-election over a ballot shortage during the June 3 local elections chant slogans outside the entrance to the handball arena at Olympic Park in Songpa-gu, Seoul, on Monday, where a vote-counting center has been blockaded. [Yonhap]
Protesters demanding a re-election over a ballot shortage during the June 3 local elections chant slogans outside the entrance to the handball arena at Olympic Park in Songpa-gu, Seoul, on Monday, where a vote-counting center has been blockaded. [Yonhap]

Protesters blockading a vote-counting center in Jamsil over a ballot shortage during the June 3 local elections have resorted to illegal conduct, stopping and searching ordinary members of the public without any legal authority to do so.

Six members of South Korea's women's youth national handball team, wearing national team uniforms, arrived at entrances 1 through 5 of the handball arena at Olympic Park in Seoul around 10 a.m. Monday and were seen pleading with protesters to let them through.

The players were scheduled to train ahead of their participation in the 25th World Women's Junior Handball Championship (U20), which opens in Jinzhong, Shanxi Province, China, on June 24.

With the arena blockaded by the protest, they had come to retrieve training equipment so they could practice instead at nearby Korea National Sport University.

Protesters blocked their way, demanding to know how they could be sure the women were really handball players and asking them to show match footage for a face check.

Police officers guarding the entrance appealed for cooperation, saying the players were likely too junior to have match footage available. The players said they needed the official balls stored inside, but protesters refused to budge, asking why those particular balls were necessary.

One player ultimately clasped her hands and begged, "Please," before the protesters finally stood aside.

That was not the end of it. When the players emerged around 10:24 a.m. with a cart and plastic bags full of training gear, protesters swarmed them and began searching their belongings. They said they wanted to check whether ballot papers — which they consider evidence of election fraud — had been mixed in. The players, most of them around 20 years old, appeared to submit to the search under pressure.

One male protester suggested the players should even have their socks removed, and was reportedly warned by police and others that such a demand could constitute sexual humiliation.

The team's director, who accompanied the players, said that if the protest ended within a day or two he could wait it out, but that two to three weeks of disruption would be a loss he could not absorb.

Fifteen minutes later, a foreign journalist had a similarly unpleasant encounter.

When the journalist appeared to be livestreaming in front of a camera in what sounded like Chinese, about 20 protesters surrounded and confronted him.

"Aren't you Chinese?" they demanded, adding that they were suspicious because of "so many people in disguise." A protester who was streaming the scene on YouTube asked those nearby if anyone could interpret what was being said.

About five minutes later, after the broadcast ended, a Chinese-speaking protester approached and asked which outlet the journalist was with. Only after hearing the answer — "Taiwan" — did the group let him pass. They also took the opportunity to criticize domestic progressive-leaning media outlets.


paq@heraldcorp.com