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“The competition is not going to be stopped and go forward on July 1,” mentioned Yang Solar-woo, head of the organizing committee for Seoul Queer Culture Festival. The committee is holding an emergency assembly this week to think about holding the occasion at a unique venue.
“We had been unfairly denied entry to the general public area the place South Korea’s LGBTQ neighborhood has celebrated pleasure each summer season for years,” she mentioned, calling the metropolitan authorities’s choice “discriminatory” and “untransparent.”
Seoul Metropolis officers mentioned they’d acquired two purposes to make use of Seoul Plaza, a big inexperienced area exterior Metropolis Corridor that may be a point of interest for demonstrations and occasions, on July 1. They’d given precedence to a Christian group requesting to carry a youth-oriented live performance there, over the Pleasure parade.
Rainbow Motion, a coalition of sexual minority teams in South Korea, accused Seoul Metropolis of “aligning with homophobia and discrimination” by permitting a Christian group to “block our gathering.”
Tens of hundreds of pleasure members gathered at Seoul Plaza in entrance of the South Korean capital’s Metropolis Corridor yearly since 2014, apart from a two-year hiatus in 2020 and 2021 as a result of pandemic.
However LGBTQ rights stay a contentious concern in South Korea, amid its entrenched gender norms and dominant social conservatism.
Final yr, some 15,000 counterprotesters backed by Christian and socially conservative teams rallied in opposition to the Pleasure occasion which had tens of hundreds of members, yelling homophobic slogans via loudspeakers into the rainbow-filled Seoul Plaza. Given the standoff, there’s all the time a heavy police presence.
Metropolis authorities mentioned they made a lawful and neutral choice concerning the utilization of the plaza. “Based mostly on municipal ordinances … occasions for youngsters and youngsters get a precedence when requests are filed for a identical date,” mentioned Jeong Sang-hun, administrative director at Seoul Metropolitan Authorities.
Native officers requested the 2 requesters to reschedule however failed to succeed in an settlement, the metropolitan authorities mentioned in an announcement on Thursday.
Christian Tv System, a South Korean spiritual broadcaster, was the opposite group that utilized — and acquired — permission use plaza on July 1.
“The day is when the climate is forecast to be good and if we had been to postpone, the live performance can be proper within the monsoon season,” mentioned Kim Min-tae, a spokesman for the broadcaster’s tradition basis.
He denied the homosexual rights activists’ allegations that the live performance was intentionally scheduled on the date to cease the pleasure competition.
Homophobia stays rampant in South Korea, the world’s Tenth-largest economic system. Identical-sex {couples} in South Korea are attempting to bring about change by difficult legal guidelines and administrative rulings, one after the other.
“This can be a typical case of Pleasure blockade seen in international locations the place governmental authorities aspect with bigotry and discrimination,” mentioned Ryu Min-hee of Korean Legal professionals for Public Curiosity and Human Rights. The arbitrary software of Seoul Metropolis’s rules on the plaza utilization creates a “censorship threat” threatening freedom of meeting at an essential public area, she mentioned.
It’s not solely South Korea that’s hostile to the queer neighborhood within the area.
Comparable attitudes prevail in Japan, the only G-7 country to not acknowledge same-sex marriages, however the authorities is coming below growing stress to vary legal guidelines to acknowledge and shield the LGBTQ neighborhood. Tokyo hosted a big and overwhelmingly constructive Pleasure parade final month, below the slogan “Press on till Japan adjustments.”
Taiwan is the one place within the area with marriage equality.
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