Skip to main content
Riot police ambush and arrest South Korean union president
Authorities are trying to scapegoat trade unions for Covid containment failures and to discourage people from protesting
PUTTING THE BLAME WHERE IT BELONGS: Korean Health Workers Union members in front of Seoul City Hall last week call for better treatment of medical personnel

THE president of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), Yang Kyung Soo, was arrested at dawn on September 1 in an ambush involving police squadrons in riot suppression gear and fire trucks surrounding the union headquarters at 5am and smashing their way into the union at 5.30am. 

Yang is a member of the autoworkers’ union KMWU through the Kia irregular workers’ branch.

The authorities pre-emptively arrested the president of South Korea’s largest trade union confederation to lock him up under pretrial detention while they investigate into his supposed crimes which they allege are: obstruction of general traffic through demonstration; violation of the Act on Assembly and Demonstration; and acts relating to infectious disease control.

Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
TB albums
Album Reviews / 3 March 2025
3 March 2025
New releases by Samba Touré, Santrofi, and Piers Faccini & Ballake Sissoko 
SCARING TRUMP: (Left to right) Brazil’s President Luiz Ina
Features / 24 February 2025
24 February 2025
The towering figures of the North American right and the South American left are set to clash this summer as Brazil hosts Brics, an alliance Trump is determined to smash, reports TONY BURKE
US unions
Features / 11 January 2025
11 January 2025
The looming Trump presidency has forced unions to rebuild their unity and strength, writes TONY BURKE, as the SEIU returns to the AFL-CIO, healing the 2005 rift over organising priorities and getting ready to fight the right together
rory
Culture / 30 December 2024
30 December 2024
A horn of plenty, no less!