South Korean ruling party MP, Bae Hyun-jin, hospitalised after attack in Seoul’s Gangnam, ‘15-year-old’ arrested
- Bae Hyun-jin, was struck on the head with a rock on a street in Seoul. The male assailant was arrested at the scene, and reportedly told police he was 15
- The attack comes a month after the country’s opposition party leader Lee Jae-myung was stabbed in the neck while talking to reporters in the port city of Busan
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Bae Hyun-jin, 40, was taken to hospital, the report said, adding her condition was “not life threatening”.
The lawmaker was bleeding before being transferred to Soon Chun Hyang University Hospital in Seoul, it said, adding she was struck on the back of her head.
The male assailant, who allegedly asked her name before assaulting her, was arrested by the police at the scene of the attack, said Yonhap.
He reportedly told the police he was 15 years old.
No further details about the assailant or his motive were available, and the Gangnam police station was not immediately available for comment.
The People Power Party’s interim leader, Han Dong-hoon, later told reporters at the hospital that Bae had bled quite a lot after the attack but was now recovering, adding that such an incident should never happen again.
Bae Hyun-jin asked him to “tell the public not to worry too much” as she was “overcoming the situation well”.
In a statement, party spokesman, Park Jung-ha expressed “serious concern about the renewed violence and political terrorism in this chaotic era filled with extreme politics and politics of hatred”.
“Extremist acts of violence are never acceptable under any circumstances.”
The opposition Democratic Party condemned Thursday’s attack against Bae, as “political terrorism that threatens democracy.”
“It is an attack on democracy,” the party said in a statement.
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South Korean opposition leader hospitalised after stabbing incident
The attack comes just about a month after the country’s opposition party leader Lee Jae-myung was stabbed in the neck while talking to reporters in the port city of Busan.
He underwent a surgery and returned to work on January 17.
Several other high-profile South Korean politicians have been attacked in public in recent years.
Song Young-gil, who led the Democratic Party before Lee, was struck in the head with a blunt object in 2022.
South Korea is generally a safe country, with a murder rate of 1.3 per 100,000 people in 2021, according to official statistics.
Police have vowed to not “hesitate” to use their firearms after the series of stabbings shook the typically low-crime country.
