DHAKA: Hundreds of thousands of South Koreans have taken to the streets of Seoul to demand the resignation of scandal-hit President Park Geun-hye, in one of the largest anti-government protests in decades.
On the back of official appeals for calm, police deployed around 25,000 officers on Saturday for the third installment in a series of weekly mass demonstrations in the South Korean capital that have left Park fighting for her political life.
In an effort to soothe public anger, Park has issued several apologies, reshuffled her top officials, and even agreed to relinquish some of her extensive executive powers, but the popular calls for her to step down have been relentless.
“We are feeling the weight of the serious public mood,” Jung Youn-kuk, presidential spokesman, acknowledged on Friday.
Prosecutors are investigating allegations that Choi, 60, leveraged her personal relationship with the president to coerce donations from large companies like Samsung to nonprofit foundations which she set up and used for personal gain.
The scandal engulfing Park is focused on a close personal friend, Choi Soon-sil, who is currently under arrest on charges of fraud and abuse of power.
She is also accused of interfering in government affairs, despite holding no official position.
On Saturday, prosecutors questioned the head of the country’s largest steelmaker as well as a top Samsung executive.
Kwon Oh-joon, Posco chief executive, was interrogated about allegations surrounding the 2014 sale of the company's in-house advertising unit.
Kwon was the first head of a major South Korean conglomerate to be questioned over the scandal.
The allegations are that one of Choi’s associates attempted to force the company that bought Posco's advertising subsidiary to hand over 80 percent of its shares.
Reports of the unhealthy influence Choi wielded over Park have sent the president's approval ratings plunging to record lows.
Police said they had planned for a crowd of around 170,000 for Saturday’s demonstration, while organizers said they expected “between 500,000 and one million” to turn out.
Tens of thousands arrived in Seoul by buses and trains from provincial cities around the country. One group of 1,000 protesters flew in from the popular southern resort island of Jeju.
Such numbers make it one of the biggest anti-government rallies since the pro-democracy protests of the 1980s.
“The organisers were talking about a million people coming to the streets of Seoul today,” Al Jazeera’s Harry Fawcett said, reporting from Seoul.
A protest in June 2008 against then-president Lee Myung-bak’s decision to lift an import ban on US beef drew 80,000 people according to police, while organizers claimed 700,000.
In a televised press conference on Friday, Lee Joon-sik, deputy prime minister, voiced concerns at the possibility of “illegal collective action or violence”.
BDST: 0909 HRS, NOV 13, 2016
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