Korean Religious Groups Call for End to Abuse Aimed at Itaewon Victims’ Families

Representatives of four major religious groups condemned “indiscriminate hate, belittlement and insults directed at the victims and families of the Itaewon tragedy”

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25 December 2022

Clergy from four major religious organizations in Korea have issued an appeal to end insults and abuse aimed at bereaved family members from the Oct. 29 crowd crush disaster in Seoul’s Itaewon neighborhood.

They also called for an immediate police investigation.

The Social and Labor Affairs Committee of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism, Jesuit Research Center for Advocacy and Solidarity in Korea, National Council of Churches in Korea’s Justice and Peace Committee and Civil Society Network of Won Buddhism issued a “Clergy’s Appeal to the Public for the Victims and Bereaved Families of the Itaewon Tragedy” on Wednesday.

In it, the groups said that there was “indiscriminate hate, belittlement and insults directed at the victims and families of the Itaewon tragedy,” calling the abuse “unutterable.”

“Recently, a mother who was holding back her pain while standing watch over a memorial altar even fainted from the shock of the mockery made to her face,” they said.

The appeal called for an “immediate end to the insulting verbal violence, including the belittlement, rebukes, passing the blame, criticism and mockery, as the bereaved families are also our precious neighbors without whom we could not live.”

It also called for an “immediate police investigation into this ‘secondary abuse’ and for swift measures to socially protect the bereaved families.”

“Watching people curse the bereaved families, whose gut-wrenching pain will not ease even if you hold their hands and cry together with them, makes us ask ourselves once again why communities exist.” #

Source: https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/1072769.html