Today Justice for North Korea (which holds the 444 Campaign I attend every weekend in Insadong) and other North Korean Human Rights organizations held a protest of the the Olympic Torch Relay in Seoul. We gathered by the Peace Gate, where the relay started. It's not far from Jamsil and was erected for the 1988 Summer Games.

Below each photo I've written bits about what's happening or commentary, which are meant to be read in order as a narrative. But I'm realizing that you may not have time to click through all the photos, so please stop back in a few days. Here and/or possibly at a friend's blog I'll post a somewhat expanded version of what happened that you can read straight through.

Below the thumbnails are links to media coverage.

Media coverage:

Saturday evening (April 26, 2008) demonstration and rally in front of the Olympic Peace Gate

KBS (the equivalent of the BBC) coverage of our demonstration last night in front of the Peace Gate - Click the button below the video that is the second one on the left to get high-res.

SBS coverage of the same event last night - Click button below photo to start video. Note the popular B-Boys briefly perform at the beginning of our demonstration.

Sunday (April 27, 2008)

A CNN article - has decent background info for those new to the issue
the accompanying video - Click "Torch protest in South Korea 1:00" and you will see footage from our weekly campaign in Insadong shot the previous day

AP article - an NK defector that one of our group's leaders knows tried to set himself on fire somewhere along the relay route
photo of the man trying to set himself on fire

A Chosun video - Scroll down. The first video has a brief shot of our protest at about 1:30 and then more starting at about 2:05. In between those two points is the general scene in the area.

Yonhap article - photos of Dr. Vollertsen all alone

Reuters photo of our demonstration

Another Reuters photo - JiHye, who is South Korean, is misidentified as a North Korean defector.

AP story in the NY Times - Includes two paragraphs about where we were -- it all seems accurate except there sure weren't 2500 police separating us from the students

Sunday evening (April 27, 2008) near City Hall (in front of the Human Rights Commission Building

hit by a Coke bottle - around 0:45. fortunately it was almost empty and was plastic. Dr. V's response: "the Chinese understanding of democracy"

another video about the same time