Participants who obstructed law enforcement during protests at the Jamsil vote-counting site, which have continued for more than a month over a ballot shortage, have been referred en masse to prosecutors.
Seoul's Songpa Police Station said Wednesday that it had referred a man in his 60s to the Seoul Eastern District Prosecutors' Office the previous day on charges of obstructing official duties, after he assaulted a police officer during the National Assembly special parliamentary investigation committee's entry into the vote-counting site. He was referred with detention.
The man is accused of shoving and using violence against a police officer who was removing protest participants blocking the committee's entry at around 1:10 p.m. on June 2 at the handball stadium in Olympic Park, Songpa-gu, Seoul.
At the time, protest participants linked arms with one another and held out, saying "Not without a warrant," in an attempt to block the committee's entry, before being dragged out one by one by police.
Police arrested the man in his 60s in the act and immediately requested a detention warrant from prosecutors to secure custody. The Seoul Eastern District Court also issued the warrant on June 4, citing a risk of flight.
The Songpa Police Station also referred two men in their 20s and one man in his 40s the previous day without detention on charges of causing injury while obstructing special official duties.
They are accused of assaulting a Songpa Police Station officer on the 5th of last month, when the ballot box from the No. 2 polling station in Jamsil 7-dong, Songpa-gu, Seoul, was transported to the vote-counting site inside the handball stadium. A police investigation found that they blocked the officer, who was in transit, and then committed the assault while claiming that an election commission official was in disguise.
Police also referred a woman in her 20s without detention on June 6 on charges of violating the Information and Communications Network Act, after she filmed the situation on video and shared it on social networking services (SNS), spreading their claims as they were.
