By Police will use pepper spray against violent protestors at illegal demonstrations to protect themselves and more effectively disperse them.
The National Police Agency (NPA), issued new guidelines Thursday on ways to control demonstrators. From now on, police officers are encouraged to enforce the law in a more “active” manner, moving away from its past passive defensive mode.
“Until last year, we focused on keeping order at illegal demonstrations by means such as blocking the path of ralliers with buses. But now we’ll take a sterner attitude toward illegal collective action by arresting violent protesters at the scene or tracking them down after the rallies end,” an NPA officer said.
I’ve long thought this would be a good idea and wondered why the Korean government hadn’t moved toward this yet.
I got to see some of the preparations for the G8 summit here in Georgia a few years ago. There are a lot of quality, nonleathal crowd control products that would come in handy when dealing with radical university student and labor union violent protests. Pepper spray is one of them. Another is high powered paintball gun that can fire a mixture of projectiles ranging from hard ones to one that are filled with pepper spray to ones filled with dye to mark key rioters for possible detention.
I also like the
concussion grenades that can stun rioters in the immediate area, casts out a cloud of pepperspray or tear gas, and shoots out a number of hard rubber balls in all directions.
I think all of these could be used against the favorite tactic of Korean protesters of building a massive scrum against the wall of shields and stacked rows of riot police. Or the vandalism of riot control buses.
Of course, Korean protesters would adjust to the new tools like protesters have at things like the G20 or IMF conferences, but the Korean riot policy would be a lot better off than they are now.
4:49 am on April 2nd, 2009 1
Well if you think that all this is just so great then why don't you yourself go and man the front line.
1:00 pm on April 2nd, 2009 2
I'm all for proactive devices that incapacitate rioters who become unruly, however, flying rubber pellets have the capacity to injure eyes if hit and some people will be hit in the eyes and blinded. Not a good thing.
2:03 pm on April 2nd, 2009 3
How about gochu pepper spray? Get that in the eye and you’d know it!
10:42 am on April 3rd, 2009 4
[...] this is just my opinion, Gi Korea seems to be totally in favour of the more robust approach to ‘illegal’ protests in [...]
11:03 am on April 3rd, 2009 5
I wonder if some of the reluctance to use tear gas/ pepper spray has been over the Yonsei U. student who was killed a while back by the tear gas canister that hit him in the head during their demonstrations/riots.
11:27 am on April 3rd, 2009 6
It probably has more to do with the rioters/protesters screaming bloody persecution, and then having groups like Amnesty International back them up.
10:56 am on April 8th, 2009 7
It's really the riot police who are the victims of a human rights violation in not being allowed to defend themselves. A screaming mob is a deadly thing. People have been accidentally trampled to death by them. If a lone moron started throwing rocks at someone, the police would forcibly bring him down, possibly injuring him in the process, but when it's a screaming mob of students, their education, or their political cause gives them some extra set of rights to smash the storefronts of other people and toss lethal projectiles at them.
A long time ago, Glenn Reynolds asked his readers about whether police should shoot stone throwing demonstrators. I said take police and demonstrators out of the question. Is any ordinary citizen forbidden from defending himself when attacked with stones?
If you pull a gun on someone, or a knife, and get shot, right-thinking people everywhere celebrate. If you join a violent mob, you're no different.
The Korean government needs to stand up to the retarded international community, but they have a long history of doing everything wrong, so that's unlikely.
1:16 pm on April 8th, 2009 8
I think often the problem is one of the number of people involved.
In a one on one confrontation it may be obvious who is the guilty party, however in a mob the perpetrator, who is breaking windows and throwing bricks, can quickly claim to be an innocent bystander. Whom the media only videos after the police have him and are beating him into submission. (his or her cohorts will quickly agree, he or she was innocent), Hence the police are brutal to innocent bystanders.