ROUGH DAY IN GANGJEONG VILLAGE

Sung-Hee Choi reports from Gangjeong village on Jeju Island:

[June 8] On the 2nd fierce day of struggle, clear oppression was held on religious events. Lots of police violence, a woman was carried to hospital then arrested. Eight people including two Catholic priests and two Protestant pastors were arrested. Many people were beat and injured including an arrested Catholic priest.  Forth caisson was put on the sea.

The village siren rang again around 1pm. Catholic priests, interrupted of their Catholic mass, started to stop construction (destruction) trucks. Fr. Mun Jeong-Hyeon lying again underneath a truck, Fr. Lee Young-Chan and Fr. Kim Seong-Hwan climbing onto the cement mixer trucks. Fr. Lee Young-Chan was soon arrested.

Meanwhile whenever people tried to stop other trucks, police’s brutal dealing of people was constant on the day. When two young woman activists stopped trucks, one of them entering underneath a truck, the police soon arrested her. The other young woman activist fell down when a police snatched her hair and severely pushed her back to the ground. She lost her consciousness so an emergency ambulance was called. However, as it was clear for people that the police wanted to arrest her, the people fought with the police. People carried her to their car, protecting her from the touch of police, but the police eventually arrested her in the hospital after medical investigation (around 6pm). She was released from the police station around 9 pm, probably because of her weak health and the police being afraid of public opinion.

The police arrested Fr. Kim Seong-Hwan on a top of cement mixer truck by moving police bus close to the truck. They violently dragged him from the truck, making him severely injured on back .

The police also arrested two Protestant reverends violently. A young pastor fell on the ground and hit by a policeman, with his pants partially taken off from them.

Before that, the police had been violently interrupting a Protestant mass that was held in front of the naval base project building complex, moving pastors’ altar and cross etc.

The elderly villager who is one of advisory board members of the village and a former city council member was shocked by the police behavior. The police showing no respect to him arrested him under the false charge that he hit the policemen. It was not only him. Many villagers were brutally hit by the policemen yesterday.

Long day ended again. But we don’t know what will be today. With the government forcefully enforcing the naval base in the village, conspiring to make the whole village disappearing on the map with its attempt to designate military restriction zone in the village, people’s fiercer struggle is going on.

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