SOUTH KOREA: South Korea's conservative groups hold a mass rally against North Korea on Memorial Day

Record ID: 212800

  • Title: SOUTH KOREA: South Korea's conservative groups hold a mass rally against North Korea on Memorial Day
  • Date: 7th June 2011
  • Summary: SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (JUNE 6, 2011) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF PROTESTERS CHANTING SLOGANS
  • Embargoed: 22nd June 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Korea, Republic of
  • Country: South Korea
  • Topics: International Relations,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVABBV7Q7HXH9WBARN513DYQHTOE
  • Story Text: Thousands of South Koreans held a rally on Memorial Day against the North on Monday (June 6).
    About 30,000 conservative people gathered at Seoul City Hall plaza on the Memorial Day holiday, waving South Korea's national flags and chanting anti-North Korea slogans.
    Angry protesters denounced the North Korean dictatorship.
    "The Kim Jong-il regime is a dictatorial regime with transferring power from father to son for three generations. The regime should be destroyed as quickly as possible for freedom and human rights of North Korean people. We should also scrape out pro-North Korean groups in the South for the future of our country," protest leader Bong Tae-hong said.
    Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been high since North Korea's torpedo attacked a South Korean warship last year, killing 46 sailors and the reclusive country shelled South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island last November, killing four people including two civilians.
    The attacks, one of which the North denies and the other it says was an act of self-defence, drove tensions on the peninsula to their highest level in years.
    North Korea's military repeated its threat to attack the South on Friday (June 4), vowing "thousand-fold revenge" on the Seoul government after local media in the South reported that some South Korean army training centres had used pictures of Kim Jong-il and his son as targets on rifle ranges.
    North Korea has often made bellicose threats against the South.
    The North said at the start of the week it had ended all attempts to deal with "traitor" Lee and his "thuggish clan", and broke off two of their few channels of inter-Korean dialogue.
    Two days later, the North made the stunning revelation that South Korean officials last month had "begged" and tried to bribe the North into attending a series of summits.
    Seoul has acknowledged the secret talks took place in Beijing, but said they were aimed at extracting an assurance from the North not to repeat the kind of attacks staged last year that killed 50 South Koreans.
    North and South Korea are still technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce without a peace treaty.
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