Sad death of farmer Baek Nam-ki

Farmer Baek Nam-ki passed away on Sunday after falling to the ground by high-powered police water cannons at the first general rally at Gwanghwamun Square in Nov. 14 last year. He was taken to Seoul National University Hospital after the accident and underwent a brain surgery but remained unconscious and hospitalized in the intensive care unit for 317 days. It was a sad loss of life after a violent protest that paralyzed central Seoul and brutal crackdown by the police. Protesters had demanded to repeal labor act amendment and National Security Law on that day.

The pan-national committee composed of liberal NGOs, which wished for his recovery and criticized violent repression by the government, argued that the excessive police crackdown was the direct cause of his injury. In the public hearing on the activist in coma on Sept. 12, opposition lawmakers insisted that bus walls formed by the police prompted more violent reactions from the protesters and that the police violated guidelines when firing water cannons. It is likely that the pan-national committee and opposition parties would again play the blame game and political struggles may arise.

It is not deniable that the November rally was violent one that disarmed the governmental power. Han Sang-gyun, the head of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), who led the controversial laborer’s protest, found guilty for five years by the Seoul Central District Court in July by acknowledging that some of the protesters tried to pull the buses with ropes and attempted to set fire to the gas tank openings on vehicles carrying police officers. The court also concluded that the police violated the law to knock Baek over and causing his brain damage as it ignored the guideline to shoot the water cannon below chest.

The political circles and civil organizations should take Baek's death as a chance to advance our protest culture. National Policy Agency chief Kang Shin-myung, who declined to make an official apology for the activist’s death, is hoped to offer a moral apology before the spirit of the deceased, regardless of investigating the sign of his death.