By Kim Rahn



About 70 members of sexual minority groups are staging a sit-in at Seoul City Hall which began Saturday to protest against the city government's about-turn from a previously stated plan to establish a charter for the protection of gay rights.



The protesters are demanding that Mayor Park Won-soon apologize for changing his attitude toward providing official protections for sexual minorities.



Members of Rainbow Action — a coalition of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender groups — began the sit-in in the lobby on Saturday morning by hanging a banner that read: "To sexual minorities, human rights mean life."



The sit-in comes six days after the Seoul Metropolitan Government halted finalizing the Charter of Human Rights for Seoul Citizens, which it had initially planned to proclaim on Dec. 10 — World Human Rights Day — because of protests from gay rights opponents.



The controversial clause in the draft states that a person has "the right not to be discriminated against based on sexual orientation or sexual identity."



"Seoul City and Park have degraded the rights of sexual minorities into an issue that can be ‘agreed with' or ‘opposed,'" said an activist on Sunday, adding that the issue is a matter of life and death because sexual minorities often face the threat of violence from hate groups.



The protesters also criticized the human rights lawyer-turned-mayor for "submitting" to Christian groups that oppose gay rights.



According to Rainbow Action and the city government, Park told leaders of the Council of Presbyterian Churches in Korea on Dec. 1, "I basically believe discrimination should be banned, but I don't support homosexuality."



Rainbow Action said in its statement, "We had to witness an obsequious scene in which Park abandoned the human rights of sexual minorities under pressure from far-right Christian groups and apologized for causing ‘social conflict' over the charter that Seoul citizens drew up.



"It is not a regression of the human rights of sexual minorities but a regression of human rights in Korean society. We will not give in to this reactionary move."



