Entertainers Join Effort to “Save My Friend,” South Korean Lawmaker Launches Hunger Strike

Across the street from the Chinese Embassy in Seoul today was a busy place.  At 2 p.m. South Korean National Assemblywoman Park Sun Young of the Liberty Forward Party launched a hunger strike (I took the photo above around 5:40 p.m.).

In a statement on Tuesday, Park said she plans to launch an “indefinite” hunger strike in front of the Chinese embassy in Seoul to protest the forced repatriation of North Korean defectors by China.

“At this very moment, China continues to search and arrest North Korean defectors,” Park said.

“To fundamentally change China, somebody must make a sacrifice. So, I will launch an indefinite hunger strike starting today,” the lawmaker said. [Korea Times]

I have seen her at several North Korean human rights events over the years, so I doubt this is an act to bring attention to herself.  One of her staff members said she will be sleeping in a tent at this spot — and she pointed to it around the corner.
Meanwhile at 4:50 p.m., just a few feet to her right, actor Cha In Pyo and several other entertainers held a press conference.  They sang, cried, and read letters appealing to the “citizens of the People’s Republic of China and the international community” to stop the repatriation of 31 refugees currently detained in China. Cha of course was the lead actor in the 2008 movie Crossing.
As you can see in the photos below, the stars got the media out. There must have been a camera from every major news outlet in Korea there.

But it’s not just all star-power.  Many groups appear to be uniting behind a “Save My Friend” grassroots campaign that is rapidly spreading via social media (Twitter and more recently Facebook).  I base that on the fact that the petition they very recently started is now getting thousands of signers per day.
Joining the entertainers were a group of students and the principal from YeoMyeong School, which is an alternative school for young North Korean defectors in Seoul.

The Save My Friend organizers plan to gather every day at 2 p.m. across the street from the Chinese Embassy.  It’s about a 8-10 minute walk straight out of exit 2 of the Gyeongbokgung Subway Station (line 3).