WORDS AND PHOTOS BY ROBERT JOHNSON
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This photo was taken by my half-brother Benjamin Caldwell Acree. He was looting a police bus as I was getting beaten.
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Hello. This is me in the In Jae University Hospital in South Korea.
There is a puncture wound on my cheek, seven stitches on the inside of my mouth, and another seven on the outside. I also have a dislocated shoulder with ligament damage and a concussion. I got these injuries when I was blindsided by a riot shield while changing a roll of film in my camera.
The protests all started a few months ago. On February 25, the people of South Korea elected Lee Myung-bak as president. Mr. Lee had previously been mayor of Seoul and on the board of Hyundai, and before the election he had been prosecuted multiple times for charges of corruption, embezzlement, land speculation, and campaign-finance infringement. He was elected with the lowest voter turn-out in South Korean history. One of his first political moves was to approve the KORUS FTA, a free-trade agreement with the US. This included the reintroduction of US beef to South Korean markets, which had been banned since the outbreak of mad cow disease in 2003.
After this his approval rating dropped to an average of 28 percent, hitting its lowest point at around 12 percent. Then the protests began. The protests centered on the import of US beef, but that’s more of a jumping-off point for general complaints about President Lee’s social and economic policies. The protests have been happening pretty much every night since the FTA was signed.
I went to one of the first protests out of curiosity and have been going ever since. These shots are a selection from the last two months.
Initially the protests were candlelit vigils. I think I was there the first time they actually marched. They wanted to go to the president’s house and directly voice their disapproval. The government set up roadblocks with buses and riot police. The protesters sat down on the street. The police declared it illegal and rushed the sitters. The pictures of the old woman are from that night. So I guess it was violent right at the beginning.
I got hurt about a month and a half into the protests. The mood had grown really bad: The protesters were angry that nothing was changing in spite of their efforts, and the police were tired of being out all night, every night. Earlier in the day demonstrators wrecked three water cannons the police had foolishly left right next to the main gathering place without any real guards. They smashed and looted them. That night, when the police shot at them with water cannons, the protesters had the ability to fire back. There was a stand-off for some time while tempers worsened.
TO BE CONTINUED
OUCHY! |
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