A wheelchair-bound activist of the Solidarity Against Disability Discrimination joins a protest campaign calling for a state budget for disability rights at the Gwanghwamun subway station in Seoul on Aug. 1, 2022. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Aug. 1 (Korea Bizwire) — A disability advocacy group resumed its rush-hour subway protest campaign Monday calling for a state budget for enhancing disability rights, leaving early morning trains on Subway Line 5 delayed by nearly an hour.
Demanding a budget for disability rights, including the right to free movement, dozens of wheelchair-bound activists of the Solidarity Against Disability Discrimination (SADD), divided into three groups, boarded or transferred en masse to trains at the Gwanghwamun subway station during the peak morning rush hour at 8 a.m.
SADD had been staging rush-hour subway protests on and off since late last year before temporarily suspending them on July 4, demanding Finance Minister Choo Kyung-ho come up with a clear stance on their calls for the disability budget.
The subway-delaying protests will be staged again during the morning rush hour every Monday if their demand is not answered, SADD warned.
The resumed protest on Monday had delayed trains going both directions on Subway Line 5 by about an hour before the civic group ended the campaign about two hours later.
No physical conflicts were reported between the activists and police officers at the station, although police blared out warnings against illegal protests through speakers.
“Finance Minister Choo Kyung-ho made a resolution for tax cuts for the rich but passed the task of securing a budget for disability rights on to different government ministries,” an official of SADD said in a press conference in front of the National Assembly following the subway campaign.
(Yonhap)
