South Korea: Amnesty International Korea releases new report “Right of the People, Duty of the State: Freedom of Peaceful Assembly in South Korea”
Despite Amnesty International’s continued calls for the revision of the Assembly and Demonstration Act (ADA), the law still fails to meet international human rights standards, raising concerns over excessive restrictions on peaceful assemblies.
Peaceful assemblies are frequently pre-emptively banned on the grounds of location and traffic disruption. A revision to the enforcement decree of the ADA has effectively turned the area near the Yongsan Presidential Office into a no-assembly zone.
Numerous cases have been identified where peaceful assemblies by disability rights groups were dispersed with unnecessary use of physical force.