Liberal civic activists hold a rally at Dongdaegu Station Plaza in the southeastern city of Daegu on Dec. 22, 2024, to oppose the installation of a statue of former President Park Chung-hee. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
DAEGU, Dec. 23 (Korea Bizwire) — The southeastern city of Daegu is set to hold the unveiling ceremony of a statue of former President Park Chung-hee on a plaza in front of its main train station Monday amid protests from opponents denouncing him as a dictator.
The Daegu metropolitan government headed by conservative Mayor Hong Joon-pyo has installed the statue of the conservative former president at Dongdaegu Station Plaza, 233 kilometers southeast of Seoul, and is scheduled to hold the unveiling ceremony at 2 p.m.
Park’s 18-year dictatorship, which ended with his assassination in 1979, still draws a stark divide in ideological debates. While conservatives support his legacy, which, they say, helped the country’s fast economic growth, liberals denounce him as a strongman who had no scruples about ruthlessly cracking down on his political opponents and infringing on people’s basic rights.
Prior to the ceremony, liberal civic groups, opponents of the former president and the Daegu chapter of the main opposition Democratic Party plan to hold rallies to condemn Hong and oppose the installation of Park’s statue. The opponents held an emergency news conference at the station plaza on Sunday, condemning the installation of the statue as a “regression that goes against the spirit of the times.”
Korea National Railway, a state-owned rail infrastructure management company overseeing the station plaza, also filed an injunction request with a district court on Dec. 13 seeking to suspend the statue installation.
But the Daegu city government has claimed that it holds the right to manage and use Dongdaegu Station Plaza under an ordinance enacted in 2018.
(Yonhap)
