Amnesty sides with protestors.

One can only wish the Korea Times headline reflected reality. Look closely.



Amnesty has been out of touch throughout their entire quote-unquote investigation. Not surprising why:

For the report, the human rights watchdog dispatched its inspector Norma Kang Muico in July. She interviewed 56 civilians including detainees, lawmakers, journalists and human rights lawyers, all of whom were present at or directly involved in the protests.

For a quick look at the other side of the issue, the side Amnesty chose to ignore, have a look at the following video of protestors attacking cops with shovels and metal poles.



I won't speculate on any excessive police force that went on during the protests, because I'm sure there were cases of it. But, and this is just me recalling what I saw on the news and in person, the level of violence was exaggerated in order to add credence to the cause. What was downplayed, certainly by people I deal with on a daily basis down here at my union school and in the Protest Hub of Korea, was the ugly brutality displayed by some of the demonstrators, which calls into question how "excessive" any police force might have been. The video is an example, as is this photo gallery compiled by ROK Drop, whose whole US Beef category is worth a look. I know writer and commentor here Scott Burgeson posted some first-hand accounts on his page, though I can't seem to find any save for this excerpt on Gypsy Scholar. An excerpt of that excerpt:

As the police were retreating, many protesters started charging at them and actually hitting them with their fists. There was the usual media frenzy, of course, flashes everywhere and whatnot. The most hilarious part was that the protesters were actually shrieking "Violent police!" as they were hitting the police! I thought this was just absurdly ironic and nothing else until I saw that one slight young policeman had been knocked unconscious by the protesters and had to be carried to the sidewalk and laid down. He was out for a while and eventually regained consciousness (volunteer protest medics and other police were attending to him), but couldn't stand up, so after waiting about 15 minutes an ambulance finally came and took him away.

Of course, none of the usual suspects were there to document all this, like Hankyoreh, MBC or KBS. I asked several protesters why they were complaining about the violent police when they were hitting police first, and they all whined, "The police started it!" like third graders. Remember: THE POLICE WERE RETREATING when this poor young guy was KNOCKED UNCONSCIOUS!

Yeah.