Fire Leaves Six Dead in Seoul Protest

The six died in a blaze at a five-storey building in the centre of the city.  They included a police commando. 

But more controversial is how the fire began.  The commercial Yongsan area is earmarked for major redevelopment work, but dozens of tenants have been demanding better compensation. They had been battling with police since early on the 19th.

Authorities had moved in at dawn to break up around 40 protesters who were throwing Molotov cocktails, acid, bricks and golf balls.

[Baek Dong-San, District Police Chief]:
"The police continued to warn protesters, but they disobeyed. We couldn't ignore their illegal actions, so we sent police to the site."

The protesters had been throwing the Molotov cocktails before the fire started.

As well as those who perished, another 20 protesters and police officers were injured.

This tragic ending to the all-night sit-in could put President Lee Myung-bak on the defensive.

He had only just reshuffled the cabinet's economic portfolio to speed up work to pull the country out of a recession.

[Han Seung-Soo, Prime Minister South Korea]:
"Whatever the reasons were, as the Prime Minister, I want to express deep regret for what happened."

Lee had already been facing mounting criticism for his government's handling of the impact of the global economic meltdown.

Category:

News & Politics

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• fire
• accident
• police
• commando
• seoul
• protest
• south korea
• controversial

[willminkorea]

The investigation has proven that the fire was started by gas bombs the "protestors" made to throw at the police.

[zpibkj30]

they are more like lunatics who indiscriminately threw molotov cocktails and shoot golf balls down to innocent passer-bys and vehicles. Also, it turned out after the investigation that the fire in fact started from one of the molotov cocktails they themselves used. they set themselves on fire and died!! Now that what happened, they call themselves as 'victims of police over-reaction'. DO they really think this is a funny joke??

[shiron236]

@SlaveStorm Wut? Are you trolling? That's not a bad way of doing it.

[SlaveStorm]

Sad to see the slave states we in the west live off of protesting and we just don't seem to have empathy.

If we're all one why do we keep treating ourself so badly?

Could it have anything with religion cutting us off from one another and making us believe in personal salvation? Damn the rest, just believe!

We are immortal through the survival of the human species not through divine intervention by some god on our behalf. How deluded can people allow themselves to become believing in phantoms?

[willminkorea]

Many of the "protestors" arrested are professional protestors who are simply troublemakers. The protestors who threw acid and molotov cocktails should be held responsible for what happened.