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Seoul mayor to meet with LGBTQ activists after criticisms

December 12, 2014

Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon openly supports same sex marriage. (Yonhap)

Seoul mayor Park Won-soon (Yonhap)

After five days of protesting within the walls of Seoul’s city hall, LGBTQ activists will have a chance to meet with Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon.

According to Rainbow Action’s Facebook page, the meeting will occur after Dec. 17.

“The Seoul Charter of Human Rights was a project that Mayor Park himself initiated as part of the pledges he made when he ran for office in 2011,” stated an open letter from the South Korean LGBTQ rights group Rainbow Action. ”We were appalled at the mayor’s stance as he made a decision to scrap the legitimately passed Charter. He was basically saying that LGBTQ people’s human rights are an issue that requires a unanimous consensus.”

The group’s additional frustration comes from the fact that in mid-October, Mayor Park openly supported same-sex marriage, but soon after rejected the charter, which had been developed and approved by both the Seoul city government and a citizens committee.

The controversial clause stated that Korean citizens have “the right not to be discriminated against based on sexual orientation or sexual identity.”

It is likely that heavy pressure from Korean conservative groups have led him to change his position on the issue.