In the countrywide protests over South
Korea’s agreement to import U.S. beef,
at least one woman has resorted to an unlikely weapon of dissent. To thwart
police efforts to shut down protests of the import deal, a mother used her own
baby to keep the health concerned protestors going strong.
In Seoul,
police were using water canon vehicles
to disperse crowds of protestors. But one mother took a courageous (or thoughtless?) gamble:
she positioned her baby stroller in front of the vehicles, in the hopes that
police would not have the heart to hose her child. When police asked her to
move, she replied, “I’ll only move aside after the water canon vehicles move
away.”
Fortunately, the mother’s gamble was a winning one. Other
protestors surrounded the woman and her baby stroller, discouraging police from
removing her by force. After about 30 minutes, the water cannon vehicles drove
away and the protests continued.
Was the mother wrong to use her child—in potentially
dangerous ways—to make a political statement? Or was she courageously defending
her fellow citizens’ right to protest?
AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon
