hankyoreh

father of a high school girl who died in the Sewol tragedy

By Hong Yong-deok, Park Im-keun, and Park Ki-yong, staff reporters

More than 28,800 people were participating or have expressed their intention to join sympathy hunger strikes for the legislation of the special Sewol Law, the Citizen Committee for Commemorating the Victims of the Sewol Tragedy announced on Aug. 27.

The number includes both the 3,800 people taking part at the protest site in central Seoul’s Gwanghwamun Square, and another 25,000 who applied online to take part.

More and more protest sites continue to crop up around the country. Sites have been set up or are being prepared in 24 regions nationwide, including in cities such as Incheon, Daejeon, Daegu, Busan, Gwangju, and Jeju.

Meanwhile, people in countries like the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore have been sending “confirmation photos” to show their participation as well, the committee said.

Meanwhile, a “thousand-day prayer meeting” event for victims of the April tragedy is launching at Silsang Temple in Namwon, South Jeolla Province, on Aug. 30. 304 lanterns lit over the period to symbolize the people who lost their lives or went missing in the tragedy.

South Korea’s Buddhist, Won-Buddhist, Catholic, and Protestant communities will be taking part in the inter-faith prayer meeting, during which time people will be able to pray at various temples, cathedrals, and churches in Jinju, South Gyeongsang Province, and five cities and counties around Mt. Jiri.

“We came up with the idea of the thousand-day prayer event as a sort of ‘three-year mourning period’ to heal the suffering of the family members and the South Korean public,’ said Hong Hyun-du, director of the Mt. Jiri Religious Alliance and head of the committee for the inter-faith prayer meeting. The three-year mourning period is a traditional practice after the death of a loved one in countries with Confucian influences.

A bicycle journey across South Korea for the special Sewol Law was also launched on Aug. 25 at Paengmok Port, near the site of the sinking, by Hanshin University Graduate School of Theology professor Kim Chang-joo and seven students. The participants will be traveling roughly 100 kilometers a day to cover the 527 km to their final destination in Seoul. They are scheduled to arrive at Gwanghwamun Square at 3 pm on Aug. 29, at which point they will join up at the protest site for the prayer meeting.

Meanwhile, surviving students from Danwon High School in Ansan, which many of the sinking victims attended, requested a meeting with President Park Geun-hye.

"The surviving students made the request last week," said Jang Dong-won, parent of one of the survivors. "On Aug. 22, they received word from the Office of the Prime Minister that the request had been successfully passed on to the presidential secretariat."

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