A college student has been indicted on charges of staging illegal street rallies to protest the government’s handling of a ferry tragedy that killed more than 300 people in April, prosecutors said Monday.
The Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office said it has indicted Yong Hye-in, 24, without physical detention for overstaying her protests and illegally occupying the streets with dozens of colleagues between May and June.
The Kyung Hee University student is the mastermind behind the “Stay Still” campaign, which saw hundreds of citizens silently march through central Seoul in the months following the April 16 tragedy.
“Stay Still” refers to what passengers, most of them high school students on a field trip, were told to do by the ferry crew just before the ferry Sewol capsized off southwestern waters.
Yong earlier blew the whistle on prosecutors for searching through her messages and contacts on mobile messenger app Kakao Talk without seeking her approval. Prosecutors said they were acting without a court warrant.
Yong’s revelation sparked a nationwide debate over the government’s alleged monitoring and censoring of private messages that were critical of President Park Geun-hye and her administration, along with an exodus of Kakao Talk users to a previously little-known German app, Telegram.
Prosecutors said they have also indicted poet Song Gyeong-dong on charges of holding illegal rallies in May to protest the government’s response to the Sewol ferry tragedy. (Yonhap)
