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The Civil Society Organizations Network in Korea - which represents around 500 organizations including People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, the Korean Federation for Environmental Movement, and Korean Women’s Association United - provided the police with plans to hold a demonstration and a march at Seoul Plaza on Dec. 5.

These groups are stepping up to defend the freedom to assemble and demonstrate, after the police banned the Korea Farmers’ League from holding a second large rally.

On Dec. 2, civic groups, religious figures, and lawmakers from the National Assembly held a joint press conference at the Franciscan Education Center in central Seoul in support of holding a peaceful nationwide rally on Dec. 5. “With the government banning rallies not only by the Korea Farmers’ League but also by the Pan-National Countermeasures Committee for the Recovery of the Farmer and Worker for Life and Peace Baek Nam-gi and the Denunciation of State Violence, civic groups have submitted a petition for an assembly in the name of this network in order to play a more active role,” said Yeom Hyeong-cheol, chair of the network’s operating committee during the press conference.

On Dec. 1, the group submitted its plans for the assembly to the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency on Dec. 1, using the name of “nationwide assembly” rather than the “second popular rally” in a bid to motivate more people to join. The group expects that about 5,000 people will participate in the protest and march.

The network did not participate in the first popular rally on Nov. 14...(source: Hankyoreh, 12.3)

In the late afternoon(KST) Yonhap News Agency  reported the following: Police said Thursday that they have decided to prohibit civic groups from staging a massive rally in downtown Seoul this weekend, as it appears to be led by the same groups who were in charge of last month's violent protest...

On Tuesday, the Civil Society Organizations Network in Korea, an association of 490 liberal civic groups across the country, notified police that it will hold a massive rally at the public plaza in front of the Seoul City Hall and march through the heart of the city to Daehangno Street on Saturday.

"We'll not permit the rally since it seems to be an extension of the Nov. 14 rally, which turned violent," a police official said...

Police earlier denied a plan for another rally this weekend reported by a farmers' association that led the Nov. 14 rally, along with the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), a militant umbrella labor union, and a progressive teachers' union.

The police official said the two rallies are actually the same one, with most of the rally organizers also the same...

A short while later Korea Times reported that "A court has ruled against a police move to ban a rally planned for Saturday in central Seoul by civic, labor and farmers groups that held a massive anti-government demonstration on Nov. 14. The Seoul Administrative Court said Thursday that it had accepted the request from the groups to annul the police ban on their second rally..."