“Please Restrain the Impeachment Rally”

Song Wol-ju, head of the central council for the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism, Seo Kyung-seok, minister for the Korea Chinese Church Organization, Kim Sung-hoon, representative for the Citizen’s Coalition for Economic Justice, and 86 other prominent personalities have urged civic groups to restrain from expressing political views and holding rallies involving impeachment.

They held a press conference in the New International Hotel in Junggu, Seoul in the morning of March 25 and said, “We understand the anguish of the civic groups on the presidential impeachment issues, but they should be cautious in their continuous exhibition of political views on impeachment prior to the general election.”

In a statement named “Civic groups should restrain themselves and find composure,” they argued that if “civic organizations take to the street for a prolonged time, there might be the misleading conception that it is another political activity related to the general election and will create doubts as to the real motive,” and added, “Citizens can judge the impeachment political situation by themselves. On that point, it is better to entrust this problem to our nation.”

They also said, “It was unfortunate to enforce impeachment on the president, but the civic groups have fully expressed their intentions for the past several days. Also, it goes too far to consider the presidential impeachment, which actually went through the legal process, as a coup d’etat or a suspension of constitutional order.”

Gil Ja-yeon, the president of The Christian Council of Korea said, “Opinions on the impeachment issue may differ from person to person, but the issue can’t be defined as justice and injustice, or democratic and anti-democratic,” and added, “It is time for the government and the civic groups to unite and strive to assure impartial and precise election management.”

Yang-Hwan Jung ray@donga.com