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| Members of the national disability advocacy group, Solidarity Against Disability Discrimination (SADD), board a subway car in a protest demanding the protection of their rights to movement at Samgakji Station in Seoul's Yongsan District, Tuesday. Yonhap |
By Lee Hae-rin
For the first time in over a year, Seoul's line 4 subway train skipped the station where the national disability advocacy group, Solidarity Against Disability Discrimination (SADD), was conducting a protest action during morning rush hour, Wednesday.
A Seoul Metro train, the public enterprise affiliated with the Seoul Metropolitan Government that operates the capital's subway lines 1 to 8, skipped Samgakji Station in Yongsan District. "The SADD members who have organized protests occupying the subways have caused train delays by placing their wheelchairs between the doors, thereby keeping them from closing, as well as carrying ladders (to use in their protest actions)," a Seoul Metro official explained.
Since Dec. 6 of last year, SADD's members have been conducting daily protest actions in subway stations and directly in the subway cars during the morning commute, calling for the protection of the right to movement for those with disabilities. Wednesday's protest was the group's 248th day of protest.
Seoul Metro's official Twitter account posted the announcement that it will "have trains pass Samgakji Station without stopping to reduce citizen inconvenience and secure safety." It advised passengers to get off at Sinyongsan Station ― the station after Samgakji ― and use an alternative transportation bus at exit 2.
The national disability advocacy group's activists have clashed with the Seoul Metro officials over carrying a ladder into the train for their protest actions. In 2001, a person in a wheelchair fell from a lift at Oido Station on line 4 and died. At the time, activists with disabilities protested by chaining themselves to the railway. The ladder became a symbol of the movement, which contributed to today's elevator installation rate of nearly 94 percent in Seoul's subway stations, and more broadly, the struggle of people with disabilities for the right to movement.
The activists were stopped by Seoul Metro officials when they tried to board the first car of the subway train that arrived before the train that passed without stopping while carrying said ladder, according to SADD Secretary-general Lee Jae-min.
The activists who were not carrying the ladder boarded the second car and moved on to the next station, Lee said. The train was delayed for four minutes. The train was the only one that passed the station nonstop, as the next train stopped at the station at 8:52 a.m. The disability activists boarded the next train and left the metro at Gyeongbokgung Station line number 3 after transferring at Chungmuro Station.
SADD condemned Seoul Metro's decision to have trains bypass the station.
"The protest took less than five minutes and the act of sending the trains past the station shows an irresponsible attitude that refuses to hear our voices," said SADD head Park Kyoung-seok. "Seoul Metro as a public enterprise, which should be responsible for guaranteeing the mobility rights of people with disabilities, chose instead to cause citizens an inconvenience and created a division between citizens and those with disabilities, avoiding their responsibility," he said.
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