G20 Summit, Seoul, Korea

The first day of the summit, we got to witness what may be interesting new tactics in crowd control... intense staring. As we were in front of the entrance to the G20, a young man dressed in a nice suit walks up to the stairs and pulls out a big protest sign. Somehow he got by security, maybe being so well-dressed. He was immediately surrounded by five police to hide his message. I got this shot just at the beginning before they had a chance to close in on him. He was protesting a development project. He stood stoically as the police surrounded him, but not touching him. One man, I think also from the police, but in civil clothes, yelled at him to leave and that he shouldn't be there.

The lone protester yelled back that this is not North Korea and he has the democratic right to protest. The police got very close to him, probably 20cm from his face and stared at him without even blinking. I wonder if this is what they have trained for. I could sense the protester losing his stature as he began to blink rapidly. After maybe 15-20 minutes, more police came and with a bit of a push and shove, the protester finally got in a police car on his own. I don't know what happened to him. But he must have known what he was doing, because he was media savy enough to know that with not much else happening yet, he would get air. And he did as I saw another maybe 10 cameras filming the incident.

The big protest was in the afternoon with some 10,000 demonstrators. It too, went smoothly and there were many foreign speakers. There were also probably more police controlling the situation as they met at the main train station and marched through the streets. When they arrived at a police barrage, there was a slight scuffle, but nothing serious. 

Today, much of the action is inside the G20 site with press conferences and live shots. At right, a friend, Elmy Lung from Xinhua News Agency does her live shot. I don't know how many televisions have filmed me editing on my laptop. Brazilian TV ask me to say hello in Luxembourgish! I have even met a couple of friends I haven't seen in a long time! So even if the leaders don't agree on anything, I've had fun!