The Purity of the Candlelight Demonstration Is Questionable.

With the ‘Own Play’ of making a news of his own suggestion of candlelight demonstration as an opinion of a netizen, there is rising a question of purity of the middle school girls memorial candlelight demonstration.

On every Internet site on the 8th, letters to criticize a citizen reporter (news guerilla) of the O-My News, Kim, Ki-Bo (30. Instructor, Internet ID: ‘Angma’), who made his own suggestion of the candlelight demonstration into a news. With that, opinions of the netizens to reappraise seriously about the direction of the candlelight demonstration are piling up.

▷Reaction of the netizens=On the O-My News and the homepage of ‘Angma’ on the 8th, netizens` protests saying that they were ‘deceived by the joint work of Angma and O-My News’ were piled up.

Ms. Yoon, Mi (25. Senior, Department of Chinese Literature, Yonsei University) who had participated on the candlelight demonstration said, “I feel bad because many innocent people participated on the demonstration seem to be controlled by an invisible intention.”

A netizen who introduced him as Choi, Young-Gwon criticized the people related to the own play saying, “Why didn’t he (Angma) stately make his real name clear? It is not right to say others to be dignified while his doing a mean thing.”

On the other hand, Mr. Park, Byong-Ho (28. Graduated from the Korea University Graduate School) said, “I did not participated on the demonstration because of ‘Angma,’ so there is no reason to be greatly shocked.”

‘Angma’ Mr. Kim, in relation to this, stated, “I will return the capacity of the citizen report by myself and will not write for O-My News from now on.”

▷Refutation of purity=There rises a pointing out that the protest gathering for the death of middle school girls represented by the candlelight demonstration was used as means for various civil movement organizations rather than the original objects of memory of the middle school girls and punishing the responsible people.

The candlelight demonstration originally started in front of the Seoul YMCA on November 26th of last year by the ‘People`s Countermeasure Committee for the Death of Middle School Girls (People`s Committee)’ created by some 150 civil organizations. After ‘Angma’ Mr. Kim`s suggestion to have a demonstration with ‘candlelight,’ the participants were quickly expanded, so maximum of around 60,000 people were participated.

However, during the Presidential Campaign, members of the ‘Noh Loving Assembly’ participated on the candlelight demonstration wearing yellow scarves, so it assumed an aspect of supporting a particular candidate, and even few youngsters shouting slogans like ‘Anti-USA’ and ‘Withdrawal of the American Forces in Korea,’ so it deviated from its original purpose and changed into ideological movement. The People`s Committee eventually insists that ‘the American Forces in Korea should withdraw.’

However, as a result of the survey by an Internet portal ‘Daum’ on the 8th asking the reason of participating on the candlelight demonstration, only 8% and 3% of respondents said that they supported anti-USA and withdrawal of the American Forces in Korea that the People`s Committee intended.

The People`s Committee stated that they were raising the ‘expenses for demonstration’ up to tens of millions of won for a time by allotment of participating organizations, street collection, or support of citizens.

In-Jik Cho cij1999@donga.com