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Regional secretary with the National Education Union
Riot police ambush and arrest South Korean union president
Authorities are trying to scapegoat trade unions for Covid containment failures and to discourage people from protesting
PUTTING THE BLAME WHERE IT BELONGS: Korean Health Workers Union members in front of Seoul City Hall last week call for better treatment of medical personnel

THE president of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), Yang Kyung Soo, was arrested at dawn on September 1 in an ambush involving police squadrons in riot suppression gear and fire trucks surrounding the union headquarters at 5am and smashing their way into the union at 5.30am. 

Yang is a member of the autoworkers’ union KMWU through the Kia irregular workers’ branch.

The authorities pre-emptively arrested the president of South Korea’s largest trade union confederation to lock him up under pretrial detention while they investigate into his supposed crimes which they allege are: obstruction of general traffic through demonstration; violation of the Act on Assembly and Demonstration; and acts relating to infectious disease control.

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