On August 29, line 14 of the Paris metro was the scene of a peculiar incident. At around 9 am, a group of Koreans in wheelchairs boarded at Olympiades station and, once inside the train, began to crawl. The eldest shouted in broken English: "Citizens of Paris, we're from South Korea! And we need your solidarity, to demand our rights!" The man in question was Park Kyoung-seok, the leading figure in the movement to combat discrimination against people with disabilities in Korea. As he passed, he covered the ground with stickers, the last traces of the stunt, which ended five stations down the line.
In South Korea, everyone knows the name Park Kyoung-seok. "Really everyone," said those who have accompanied him on his journey. With his white hair pulled back into a ponytail and his wise old man look, Kyoung-seok, 63, made a name for himself in the basements of Seoul when he led civil disobedience actions in the South Korean capital's subway system.
His battle is for better transport accessibility throughout the country. Since December 3, 2021, the date of his disabled association's first major demonstration, several dozen people have gathered every morning at rush hour to block the doors of the capital's subway trains, some with their wheelchairs. During the biggest protests, which take place four times a year, they number several thousand. August 27, 2024, marked the 663rd day of protest since the movement began.
Kyoung-seok owes his disability to an accident in 1983. He was 23 when he injured himself hang-gliding while taking part in an amateur competition. The young man had learned to fly a few months earlier, during his military service. That day, due to faulty equipment, he fell and lost the use of both his legs. "I remember very well, it was a Sunday. My mother had told me to go to church, but I didn't listen. I can't help thinking that I was punished for that," he confided 41 years after the event.
SADD action in the Paris metro on August 26, 2024
In the years following his accident, Kyoung-seok spent his life holed up at his mother's house. He considered suicide several times. "I would have preferred to be sad, but I was sedated," he recalled. "Before the accident, I was just a carefree young man who liked to drink and party." Today, he likes to describe himself as a warrior, prepared to lose his life on the battlefield. His friends confirmed this: "He never stops fighting. Even when he's sick."
Since the beginning of the movement, the activist has been subjected to virulent repression by the authorities and Seoul's conservative mayor, Oh Se-hoon. In a widely circulated video, the 60-something is seen being dragged by a subway security guard and strangled by the metal chain with which he had tied himself in protest. He recounted how he had to be rushed to hospital following the incident.
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