SEOUL — Thousands of gay rights supporters marched under heavy police guard in the South Korean capital on Saturday as they celebrated the city’s first major Pride parade in three years after a COVID-19 hiatus.
Police were on alert because church-backed counterprotesters rallied in nearby streets, highlighting the tensions surrounding the rights of sexual minorities in the deeply conservative country. There were no significant scuffles or disruptions as of Saturday 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. They later formed a queue of umbrellas as they marched toward a downtown business district amid drizzling rain, calling for laws banning discrimination based on sexual orientation.
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Police established perimeters to separate them from conservative Christian protesters, also numbering in the thousands, who marched in nearby streets. They 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 the protesters denounced conservative Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon over the city’s unwillingness to block the “lewd” Pride parade. Gay rights activists are also unhappy with Oh, who in an interview with a Christian newspaper last week said the city may 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.”
“Who knows if Seoul City Hall employees right now are carrying around rulers, trying to determine whether our skirts are too short, ” Bae Jin-gyo, a gay rights activist, said from the stage. “What the Seoul city government should watch is not the length of our skirts or what we are wearing, but the environment of discrimination that surrounds us.”
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Following a standard they've maintained for years, the Pride parade’s organizers required photojournalists to take pictures of participants from the “farthest possible” distance and obtain the consent of every individual whose faces are identifiable in photos — a measure to protect participants from backlash as their images may circulate on the internet.
“I first realized a I was sexual minority when I was in kindergarten but I didn’t come out until 2021, ” said Jang Yong-geol, 29, one of the few who was willing to speak to reporters. “This is my first time participating in the festival and I really love it. I don’t know why people hate (sexual minorities) when we are all humans.”
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 didn’t immediately provide a crowd estimate but had previously forecasted a turnout of around 40, 000 for the dueling events.
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While major South Korean politicians avoided the Pride parade, the event drew a number of foreign diplomats, including newly appointed U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Philip Goldberg, whose endorsement of gay rights has raised the ire of conservatives and Christian groups. Some protested in front of the U.S. Embassy in recent weeks, denouncing Goldberg’s appointment as part of the Biden administration’s “homosexual cultural imperialism.”
Goldberg tweeted during the Pride parade that “no one should be discriminated against because of their identity, ” and that he stands with President Joe Biden in applauding “all those working to advance the human rights” of sexual minorities in South Korea.
British Ambassador Colin Crooks drew cheers as he delivered a speech in Korean, saying “discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity has no place in the 21st century.”
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“The experience of Britain shows that the best way to guarantee rights (for sexual minorities) is through establishing a system of legal protection, ” he said.
While views on sexual minorities in South Korea have gradually improved in recent years, they are still harshly stigmatized and frequently exposed to hate speech and crimes. Calls for equality have so far been stymied by a powerful Christian lobby that has blocked politicians from passing laws banning discrimination. Representation is an issue as there are no prominent openly gay politicians or business leaders, although some celebrities have carved out roles in show business.
The Seoul Queer Parade wasn’t held in 2020 and 2021 because of stringent social-distancing measures to fight COVID-19. The country’s anti-virus campaign has also exposed problems with homophobia. A string of infections linked to Seoul nightspots popular with gay men in 2020 sparked a huge public backlash that critics say possibly intimidated many sexual minorities from coming forward for testing.Attempts were made to halt the Daegu Queer Culture Festival by government officials. Pride event in Seoul in 2022 is pictured. (ANTHONY WALLACE/AFP via Getty Images)
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Police and government workers clashed as the organisers of an annual South Korean Pride festival attempted to set up the event amid claims the festival would “illegally” occupy the roads.
On Saturday (17 June) the 15th annual Daegu Queer Culture Festival was slated to take place in South Korea’s fourth largest city, Daegu.
The city’s mayor, Hong Joon-pyo, has been openly opposed to the festival taking place and stated the rally would illegally block the roads, something the Daegu police force disagree with and assert freedom of assembly is guaranteed under the constitution.
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On Saturday morning, as reported by the Yonhap News Agency, around 500 government officials gathered in the city’s shopping district of Dongseongno to prevent the organisers from setting up the festival stage and booths.
Amid the stand-off, which lasted around 30 minutes, police eventually began to physically remove the officials in order to make way for the organiser’s trucks to enter the festival venue and set up.
Around 20 minutes later, the mayor gave an emergency press conference at the scene, where he said the festival organisers had “illegally occupied” the roads and he would hold the chief of the Daegu police force responsible for the situation
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Prior to the festival day, the mayor has expressed contempt for the festival on social media, even issuing his support for the Daegu Christian General Association’s court petition to ban the Pride festival.
In a statement, Lawyers for a Democratic Society chairman Cho Young-sun said the mayor must immediately “stop the politics of hate and guarantee the freedom of assembly guaranteed by the constitution”.
“The Constitution prohibits the permission system for assembly and demonstration, and today’s administrative execution by Hong Joon-pyo and his subordinate city hall officials is clearly an illegal administration that violates legal procedures as well, ” he continued.
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“Daegu City should immediately stop trying to fundamentally block and regulate the freedom of assembly under the pretext of road occupation permits.
“Our meeting sternly warns mayor Hong Joon-pyo to immediately stop anti-minority politics and immediately stop disrupting the Daegu Queer Culture Festival assembly, ” Young-sun added.
MyPinkNews members are invited to comment on articles to discuss the content we publish, or debate issues more generally. Please familiarise yourself with our community guidelines to ensure that our community remains a safe and inclusive space for all.Parts of this article (those related to post-2015 history) need to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect rect evts or newly available information. (January 2021 )
Seoul, South Korea. 28th June, 2015. Gay Pride Parade. A Couple Kiss During The Korea Queer Festival, A Gay Pride Parade In Seoul, South Korea As Conservative Christians (not Seen In Photo)
Seoul Queer Culture Festival (SQCF, Korean: 서울퀴어문화축제), formerly Korea Queer Culture Festival (KQCF, Korean: 한국퀴어문화축제), is an annual modern Korean festival, whose theme is LGBT rights. It includes a pride parade and film festival evts. The festival lasts for a week or two, and usually takes place in late May to early June. As it was the only queer culture festival in Korea until 2009, wh Daegu Queer Culture Festival began, it was also commonly called Korea Queer Festival or Queer Culture Festival (Korean: 퀴어문화축제).
The pride parade that year took place in the Daehangno area and reportedly had 50 attdees; some onlookers cursed and yelled aggressively.
The 9th edition in 2009 around the Cheonggye cheon area had a much larger number of participants and a more peaceful atmosphere.
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The evt was also attded by represtatives of a number of Korean NGOs, including Baram Sory, the Korean Gay M's Human Rights Group, the Korean Lesbian Foundation, the Lesbian Counseling Cter in South Korea, Korean Womlink, Oute, Unninetwork and Project Butchway 2010 film studio.
The 14th edition of the festival took place in the Hongdae area of Seoul and gathered about 10, 000 attdants, a record number.
The Festival in 2014 was disrupted by a number of protesters. Here, one of the protesters is holding a sign in front of the festival's stage.
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The 15th edition of the festival, taking place in early June 2014 in the Sinchon area of Seoul, near Yonsei University, declared its goal as protesting against the oppression of LGBT people in Russia and Korea, and show support and solidarity within the LGBT community.
The festival organizers have reported that days before the festival was about to start, the governmt withdrew permission from them, declaring it inappropriate in light of the rect Sinking of the MV Sewol tragedy; but the organizers have stated that they believe this is a pretext used by unfridly Christian groups trying to sabotage the festival by sding numerous complaints to the governmt. The organizers were prepared to disobey the
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