Students Occupy Seoul’s City Hall Plaza After Hand-to-Hand Battles With Police
SEOUL — Thousands of militant students occupied City Hall plaza Sunday after fierce hand-to-hand battles with riot police in one of the largest anti-government protests in recent years.
More than a dozen students and police were injured, but there were no immediate reports of arrests.
“Down with DLP!†the students shouted as they raised clenched fists into a sky filled with tear gas.
The protests against the governing Democratic Liberal Party came at the end of a three-day rally at Seoul’s Hanyang University, where 50,000 students pledged to step up a campaign to overthrow the government of President Roh Tae Woo.
Students are demanding that Kim Young Sam, the ruling party’s nominee in presidential elections later this year, resign and that democratic reforms be expanded. They also demand that the government abolish laws that prohibit contact with rival Communist North Korea.
Kim Young Sam will be running for president against Kim Dae Jung, who heads the nation’s main opposition party. Also running is billionaire Chung Ju Yung, founder of South Korea’s second-largest conglomerate, Hyundai.
Fighting broke out on Sunday when riot police fired volleys of tear gas to block about 20,000 students chanting anti-government slogans from marching into the city center.
As students and police clashed, another group of about 2,000 protesters armed with clubs and iron pipes overpowered an estimated 1,000 police and charged into the nearby City Hall plaza.
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