우리나라 집회시위 변천사에 따른 시민의식 영향 요인에 관한 연구

Abstract

A rally or demonstration is action by a mass group or collection of groups of people in favor of a political or other cause; it normally consists of walking in a mass march formation and either beginning with or meeting at a designated endpoint, or rally, to hear speakers. In Korea, ordinary citizens’ political rallies or protests after sunset and before sunrise are prohibited by law. The 2008 US beef protest in South Korea was a series of demonstrations which occurred between 24 May 2008 and about 18 July 2008 in Seoul, Korea involving, at its height, tens of thousands of people. Since the emergence of the Civilian Administration till Lee Myung-Bak Administration via the National and Participation Administrations, the Korean society has not reached a consensus on how to punish unlawful demonstrations, specifically because the police is confused to control unlawful acts related to assemblies and demonstrations and because governmental power and relevant sanctions have been poorly exercised. Although lawless and violent demonstrations should be judicially and rightfully treated without fail, the police sometimes feel some burden and cannot strictly deal with a case when suppressing and/or investigating an assembly and demonstration. Furthermore, most of the people disapprove of protestors’ unlawful acts but remain silent or inactive. Yet, they have a double standard since they are actively critical about excessive suppressions of violences by the police. As a result, the findings concern what Korean people think of the police law’s enforcement on assembly and demonstration sites, that they think it is a loss to obey the law enforcement, and how they feel about the consistency, fairness and objectivity of the police’s law enforcement. It is also found that citizens’ awareness has been turned more positive about the law enforcement, compared to past days. Accordingly, various schemes are suggested to encourage citizens’ cooperation for and understanding of the police’s law enforcement on sites of assemblies and demonstrations, with a view to contributing to the enhancement of citizens’ trust in the law enforcement for the future.