Water fired from the police cannons contained liquid tear gas and blue paint to help identify protesters for later arrest. The demonstration stretched in to the night, & cops officers detained no less than a dozen people.
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Park has become increasingly unpopular since a ferry disaster that killed more than 300 people a year ago.
About 70,000 and 130,000 protesters gathered in the capital, calling for the resignation of President Park Geun-hye.
A rally organizer representative revealed at a briefing outside Seoul National University Hospital that Baek had undergone an operation for a brain hemorrhage. A few of them clashed with police, who created tight perimeters with buses to block them. Police officers additionally fired water cannons from above a transportable wall close by to disperse marchers who have been making an attempt to advance.
Demonstrators wielding metal pipes, clubs and ropes damaged nine buses in scenes reminiscent of anti-government protests earlier in the year in Seoul, when the police were accused of heavy-handedness. Others attacked the buses with sticks and rocks, or spray-painted anti-government slogans on them.
Korea’s justice minister says violent protesters who were part of a massive anti-government protest in downtown Seoul on Saturday will be receive harsh punishments.
Organisers of the protest said there would be a march toward the presidential Blue House, a move which is likely to spark a clash with police.
It brought together various groups, including trade unions opposed to the president’s business-friendly policies.
Today’s rally was the largest South Korea has seen since 2008 when the country was hit by waves of protest against the import of United States beef.
President Park Geun-hye has pledged to closely cooperate with France and other major powers to root out terrorism following the deadly attacks in Paris, condemning terrorism as a “cancer” that undermines peace and security of the world.
Seoul authorities had issued an arrest warrant for Han after he failed to appear in court in connection with his role in organizing a May protest that turned violent.
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Government critics also say that state-issued history textbooks, which have not been written yet, would be politically driven and might attempt to whitewash the brutal dictatorships that preceded South Korea’s bloody transition toward democracy in the 1980s.
