Taegukgi rallies

The Taegeukgi rallies (Korean: 태극기 집회), also known as the Pro-Park rallies (Korean: 친박집회), were a series of counter-candlelight rallies supporting the former president of South Korea Park Geun-hye. The Taegeukgi protestors or the Taegeukgi crowds (Korean: 태극기 부대) got there because they vehemently swung or wore South Korean flags (the Taegeukgi) during rallies.[47]

Taegeukgi rallies
DateOctober 31, 2016[1] ~ January 20, 2018
Location
Korea; All regions and other countries
Caused byBacklash to Park Geun-hye Presidential Campaign
GoalsObjections to Impeachment of Park Geun-hye and 2016–2017 South Korean protests, dismissal and rejection of Constitutional Court of Korea, invalidation of impeachment citation by the Constitutional Court, Park Geun-hye President Lottery, President Park Geun-hye's release, National Assembly | National Assembly dissolution, Opposing President Park Geun-hye's expulsion
Resulted inMountain Jae-in Presidential Movement
Parties to the civil conflict

시위대

  • 천만인무죄석방본부
  • 태극기시민혁명 국민운동본부
  • 대통령 탄핵무효 국민저항총궐기 운동본부[2]
    • 박사모[3]
    • 대한민국엄마부대[3]
    • 대한민국 어버이연합[4]

대한민국 정부
Lead figures
* 권영해[6]
  • 변희재
  • 서석구
  • 손상대
  • 신동욱
  • 신혜식
  • 윤창중
  • 정광용
  • 정광택
  • 정미홍
  • 조영환
  • 주옥순
  • 추선희
  • 허평환
  • 김진태
  • 조원진
 * park geun hye (~2016.12.9)
Number

2016년 11월 12일
1,300명 (주최측 추산)
700명 (경찰 추산)[7]
2016년 11월 19일
11,000명 (경찰 추산)
67,000명 (주최측 추산)
2016년 11월 26일
800명 (경찰 추산)
10,000명 (주최측 추산)[8]
2016년 12월 3일
1,500명 (경찰 추산)
15,000명 (주최측 추산)[9]
2016년 12월 10일
213,000명 (주최측 추산)[10]
40,000명 (경찰 추산)[11]
2016년 12월 17일
1,000,000명 (주최측 추산)[12]
30,000명 (경찰 추산)[13]
2016년 12월 24일
1,700,000명 (주최측 추산)
21,000명 (경찰 추산)[14]
2016년 12월 31일
725,000명 (주최측 추산)
17,000명 (경찰 추산)[15]
2017년 1월 7일
1,020,000명 (주최측 추산)
37,000명 (경찰 추산)[16]
2017년 1월 14일
1,200,000명 (주최측 추산)[17]
비공개 (경찰 추산)[18]
2017년 1월 21일
1,500,000명 (주최측 추산)[19]
비공개 (경찰 추산)[18]
2017년 2월 4일
1,300,000명 (주최측 추산)[20]
비공개 (경찰 추산)[18]
2017년 2월 11일
비공개 (경찰 추산)[18]
2,100,000명 (주최측 추산)[21]
2017년 2월 18일
2,500,000명 (주최측 추산)[22]
비공개 (경찰 추산)[18]
2017년 2월 25일
3,000,000명 (주최측 추산)[23]
비공개 (경찰 추산)[18]
2017년 3월 1일
5,000,000명[24]
비공개 (경찰 추산)[18]
2017년 3월 4일
5,000,000명[25]
비공개 (경찰 추산)[18]
2017년 3월 8일 ~11일
7,700,000명[26][27]
비공개(경찰 추산)[18]
2017년 3월 18일
1,500,000명 (주최측 추산)[28]
비공개 (경찰 추산)[18]
2017년 3월 25일
2,300,000명 (주최측 추산)
비공개 (경찰 추산)
2017년 4월 1일
700,000명 (주최측 추산)
비공개 (경찰 추산)
2017년 4월 8일
5,000,000명 (주최측 추산)
비공개 (경찰 추산)

누적 연인원
경찰 추산 : 159,600명

주최측 추산 : 43,551,300명

2016년 11월 12일
경찰 25,000명
2016년 12월 19일
20,000명[29]
2016년 11월 26일
경찰 25,000명
2016년 12월 3일
경찰 30,000명[30]
2016년 12월 10일
경찰 18,200명[31]
2016년 12월 17일
경찰 18,240명[32]
2016년 12월 24일
14,700명[33]
2016년 12월 31일
18,400명[34]
2017년 1월 7일
14,720명[35]
2017년 1월 14일
14,700명[36]
2017년 1월 21일
15,500명[37]
2017년 2월 4일
14,600명[38]
2017년 2월 11일
16,000명[39]
2017년 2월 18일
15,200명[40]
2017년 2월 25일
17,000명[41]
2017년 3월 1일
16,000명[42]
2017년 3월 4일
15,900명[43]
2017년 3월 8일 ~ 11일
38,100명[44][45]
2017년 3월 18일
11,000명[46]
2017년 3월 25일
12,300명

누적 연인원

370,560명
Casualties
Death(s)4 people

On October 26, 2016, the first candlelight protest was held, demanding Geun-hye to step down from office.[47] Since then, an estimated 18 million protesters over the course of 6 months gathered in Gwanghwamun Plaza to demand the resignation and impeachment of former president Park Geun-hye.[47] The demonstrations continued until Geun-hey was dismissed from presidency in March 2017, even after the Constitutional Court confirmed the National Assembly's call for impeachment. Public anger centered on Park Geun-hye's role in political corruption regarding his personal acquaintance, Choi Soon-sil, and her role in unlawfully intervening with state affairs and coercing conglomerates to contribute large sums of money to Choi's own foundation.[47]

Pro-Park advocates, also known as 'silver patriots' representing an older generation, believed anti-Park forces were the pro-North Korean sympathizers and manipulated by biased media.[48] To them, what they were doing was for the protection of liberal democracy that they think they had contributed to rescue from direct communist threats in the past.[48]

Controversies

Conservatism

The Taegeukgi protests have been remarked as the first massive political assembly by the conservative camp after the democratization of South Korea.[49]

Taegeukgi crowds do not support Geun-hye's policy or political vision.[50]

In the 2012 South Korean presidential election, Geun-hye won with a majority 51.55% of votes.[50] Geun-hye's party, the Liberty Korea Party, had leaned toward the conservative end of the political spectrum so this attracted many conservative voters. However, when Park's change in political corruption was uncovered, 85% of Korean citizens agreed to impeach her from the presidency.[50] In addition to this, a large number of conservatives joined the pro-impeachment rallies for a long period of time, which proved that not only the liberals, but also a majority of conservative supporters of Geun-hye turned against her.[50]

The “good past” of Taegeukgi protestors had been projected through Geun-hye.[49] Most of the key participants of the rallies were the generation that played a key role during the time of industrialization and high economic development of South Korea under the former dictator Park Chung-hee.[49]

Taegeukgi and other flags

From demonstrations against Japanese imperial rule to the democratization movement in 1987, waving Taegeukgi elicited patriotism and strong resistance to unjust persecution.[47] However, as Taegeukgi protestors began to vehemently swing Taegeukgi, it is more and more becoming a symbol for the extreme right-wing activism.[47]

In the 1970s, Park Chung-hee, a former dictator of South Korea as well as the father of Geun-hye, gained a number of advocates through modernization of South Korea.[50] When Jung-hee took power through a military coup, he used Taegeukgi to legitimize his dictatorship and to a right-wing ideology.[50][47] Chung-hee treated all the other dissenting voices of his policy as pro-communism and that were to be eradicated in the political arena.[47] One thing Chung-hee actively propagated was “the Reds” (Korean: 빨갱이) which refers to an expression of hatred toward North Korean communism.[50] Chung-hee also exploited this notion to oppress any political critiques.[50]

Waving Taegeukgi is a strategy of the extreme right Taegeukgi protestors employed to represent their own definition of patriotism, democracy and nationalism and merged it with a sense of nostalgia of their glorious past.[47]

The flags of the United States or pro-Trump slogans were also rampant during the rallies. This is because Taegeukgi crowds have faith that the US's military intervention prevented communism to override the South during the Korean War.[47] The US flags therefore symbolize more than an ally of South Korea. To Taegeukgi protestors, the US is expected be hawk-eyed against left-wing forces and any other pro-North Korea sympathizers.[47]

Participation

Number of protestors

On March 1st Movement Day, the Taegeukgi rallies were held. The main organizer of Taegeukgi protests, National Rebellion Movement Headquarters to Dismiss Presidential Impeachment (Korean: 대통령탄핵기각을위한국민총궐기운동본부; in short 탄기국), reported the 15th anti-impeachment demonstration participation was over 5,000,000. This estimate had been criticized to be absurd because Seoul’s population is 9,904,312 (2015), Busan has population of around 3,500,000, Denmark has population of 5,600,000, and Norway has a population of 5,200,000.[51]

The issue of estimating participants emerged on January 13, when the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency announced not to release estimated number of participants. The police had released an estimated number of participants, but as protests with conflicting interests are held simultaneously and the participation numbers have had aroused confusion, police publicly reported not to count the numbers.[52]

Police operated a security force for safety and prevention of unexpected collisions at the protest site. The purpose of counting the number was an essential part to approximate numbers of tactical units to be dispatched. Police used the Fermi method. The Fermi method is estimating the number of people per area with an assumption that 5-6 people can fit in 3.3 square meters (1 plung). As such, the police estimate the number of people according to their internal needs, so strictly speaking, it is not the 'official announcement' of the estimated number of people. The size of the gathering is often a public concern, so the media has only made its own estimates available to the public.[52]

The broadcasting network JTBC, based on the testimony of participants and leaders of pro-Park groups, reported on January 26 that pro-Park Taegeukgi crowds were paying people to attend rallies so as to inflate the number of participants. General members of the Korea Parent Federation (Korean: 대한민국 어버이연합) could receive KR₩20,000 (US$18), and the pay was sometimes raised to ₩60,000 ($53). Some people in financial difficulties, including the homeless, could be paid ₩50,000 ($44) if they took a shower and tidied their appearance. Any young women with babies could receive ₩150,000 ($133).[53]

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