On the afternoon of Nov. 14, Cheong Wa Dae and its surrounding areas were empty, quiet and serene, blockaded by police buses. The scene was in stark contrast to the violent clashes between protesters and riot police less than 2 kilometers away.

The eerie comparison appeared to illustrate the growing distance between the president and the public in a country where the openness of Cheongwadae-ro 1 is a microcosm of the history of democratization. 

Some blamed the police for stoking violence by blocking demonstrators’ attempts to march toward the presidential house, while others supported the need to protect the nation’s leader from potential security risks.
 
But with the Park Geun-hye administration criticized for increasingly quashing freedom of expression, Cheong Wa Dae is seen as returning to an orthodox symbol of isolation and oppression. 

Cheong Wa Dae, which has served as the office and residence for a total of 11 South Korean leaders to date, first opened to the public in 1955, albeit partially, during the administration of South Korea’s first President Syngman Rhee. 

But the presidential office and its surrounding area were all closed in 1968 when 31 North Korean infiltrators attempted to assassinate dictator Park Chung-hee, the late father of President Park. 

As decades of military rule ended through the first democratic election in 1987, the barrier between the public and president was gradually lifted. 

Late President Kim Dae-jung made it possible for any Korean to join a guided tour inside Cheong Wa Dae upon reservation. Former President Lee Myung-bak turned one of the presidential office buildings into a cultural center, called “Sarangchae,” in an attempt to get closer to citizens. 

Since President Park was inaugurated in February 2013, however, Cheong Wa Dae has turned the clock back and its image of isolation deepened due to her lack of communication with the public, experts said. 

“Cheong Wa Dae looks lonely and inaccessible like that under her father’s authoritarian regime. Back then, the presidential office and its surrounding areas were heavily restricted from access,” Lee Chung-hee, politics professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, told The Korea Herald. “And that’s the leadership style she has grown up with.” 

While the tours around Sarangchae and the exterior of Cheong Wa Dae are still available upon reservation, police scrutiny against any potentially politically charged access near the neighborhood has been intensified.

Park’s activities inside her office or the residential area remain largely undisclosed, except for a rare occasion or two when she posted pictures of her dogs.

President Park’s self-imposed isolation and lack of communication could also since be witnessed in the event of social and political conflicts when she often refused to talk with opposition lawmakers or civic groups, stressing principle and law. 

And her solitary life in Cheong Wa Dae might have been shaped by her personal experience and family background, the professor pointed out. 

Her mother, former first lady Yuk Young-soo, was assassinated in 1974 by a pro-North Korean agent when Park was only 21. Her father Park Chung-hee was killed by his own intelligence chief in 1979. 

President Park left Cheong Wa Dae right after her father’s death and returned to the presidential office 33 years later as the president. 

“The president experienced both of her parents being killed (during her time) at Cheong Wa Dae. Her personal experience may be linked to her lack of communication with the public and emphasis on security,” Lee said. 

President Park’s unyielding push for a set of controversial policies including labor market reforms and the reintroduction of state-authored history textbooks has sparked a public backlash in recent months, prompting tens of thousands of Koreans to pour onto the streets. 

In a gesture of direct opposition to the president, the protestors took to the streets and attempted to march to the presidential office in November, shouting for Park’s resignation. But they were stopped by police setting up barricades with their buses and firing water cannons mixed with tear gas into the crowd. 

The protestors’ attempt to walk closer to Cheong Wa Dae resulted in violent clashes with police, in which a close-range blast from a police water cannon left 69-year-old farmer Baek Nam-gi in a coma.

Earlier in May, police fired water cannons on participants on a vigil walk in memory of the Sewol ferry sinking of 2014 that left 304 dead. Amnesty International called the clampdown an “unnecessary use of force” and “an insult to the victims.” 

“One year on from the accident, the authorities have shown their true colors and disdain for the rights of the families and their supporters to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly,” said Arnold Fang, East Asia Researcher at Amnesty International.

South Korea’s freedom of expression has been increasingly restricted, with the international media watchdog Freedom House degrading the nation from “free” to “partly free” in 2011, during conservative President Lee Myung-bak’s term. 

Press freedom rankings by Reporters Without Borders placed South Korea at 60th among 180 countries in the index this year, down three notches from a year earlier. 

Behind the crackdown on marches toward the presidential office, human rights activists and experts pointed to Cheong Wa Dae’s fear about its own people and intolerance of dissent. 

“Koreans had no choice but march to Cheong Wa Dae to voice their dissent directly to the president, as it seems like too much power is concentrated on the president,” Park Rae-goon, a director of the Center for Human Rights, told The Korea Herald. “All the ministries and parliament appear to have no power to reflect people’s demands in the decision-making process.”

According to data obtained by Rep. Jin Sun-mi of the main opposition New Politics Alliances for Democracy from the National Police Agency, 98 percent of the rallies banned from taking place in Seoul from January to July last year were supposed to be held near Cheong Wa Dae. 

All 61 demonstrations in memory of the Sewol ferry tragedy in the area near Cheong Wa Dae were prohibited during the same period, with police citing possible disturbance to the neighborhoods. The area near Cheong Wa Dae loosely stretches from Gyeongbokgung Palace through Gwanghwamun Square and across to Anguk Station.

“Based on numbers, 51 percent of Korean land is residential and 40 percent comprises green zones. If police ban rallies citing noise and traffic disruption, most protests should be rejected,” said Rep. Jin in the parliamentary audit session held in October. “Police are abusing abstract clauses in the demonstration act to ban rallies in front of the presidential office.” 

Though most large-scale rallies have been not permitted near the presidential office, one-man protests have been allowed as there is no law that stipulates conditions for such an action. 

But police said that the presidential office was not a factor in forbidding the rallies. 

“Any rallies that can cause serious inconvenience would be banned in accordance with the law,” a police official told The Korea Herald, asking for anonymity. “When traffic could be severely disrupted and neighborhood’s safety could be threatened, the law gives the police authority to forbid the assemblies.”

Police data shows that the number of complaints regarding outdoor rallies almost doubled from 327 in 2009 to 633 in 2013. 

“Also, it would be a breach of duty if police let thousands of protestors run to the presidential office and commit illegal acts there,” the official said. 

The restriction even led to a legal battle. In June last year, police banned a total of 61 applications for rallies to be held near Cheong Wa Dae in the wake of the ferry disaster. Soon after, lawyer Seo Seon-young of Korean Lawyers for Public Interest and Human Rights filed a lawsuit against the police on behalf of a man, surnamed Kim, asking the court to lift the prohibition order by police.

Kim was among those who applied for a permit from the Jongno Police Department to stage a demonstration in front of the National Folk Museum, near Gyeongbokgung Palace, calling for a thorough probe into the Sewol ferry disaster.

But the police rejected the application, citing a petition asking for a prohibition on the rally submitted by residents living and doing business near the venue. Seo raised a question over the authenticity of the petition as it only included names and signatures of some 80 residents living near the venue without any details such as date and place of the rally they opposed. 

Though police firmly denied the accusation about the petition being forged, the Seoul Administrative Court ruled in favor of Kim in October, citing a lack of evidence to prove that the petition is authentic and submitted by the residents themselves. 

“The unlawful bans on rallies reveals a problem with the demonstration act itself. The demonstration act appears to exist to stifle freedom of expression, not to protect it,” she said. “There are many clauses in the law police can cite to prohibit politically sensitive demonstrations.” 

In South Korea, all assemblies are allowed upon declaration, though they require organizers to apply for a permit 48 hours prior to the rally in accordance with Assembly and Demonstration Act.

Police can issue a ban on assemblies when they are thought to pose a serious threat to public security, disrupt traffic and disturb residents’ private lives. Staging an outdoor demonstration anywhere within a 100-meter radius of the presidential office, the National Assembly, the Constitutional Court, diplomatic offices and the residences of foreign ambassadors to Korea is also forbidden. 

According to the National Police Agency, the number of police bans on assemblies stood at 281 last year, with traffic disruption accounting for 45.6 percent of the reasons. Disturbance to neighborhood came in second at 32 percent, followed by multiple applications for a single venue at 12.8 percent. 

Kim Sang-kyum, a law professor at Dongguk University, pointed out that freedom of expression can only be protected when it does not violate other people’s rights. 

“If protestors were not violent and did not cause any trouble, why would police ban the rallies near Cheong Wa Dae? Gwanghwamun Square has the British and the U.S. Embassies nearby as well as other important government buildings. It makes sense that the police do not allow rallies to be held in the area,” Kim said. “People living in the area suffer from noise, obstruction of business and traffic disruption due to the rallies.”

“The right to free speech can be guaranteed to the extent that it does not hurt others’ freedom. Freedom entails responsibility,” he said. 

But Han Sang-hie, a law professor from Konkuk University Law School, said that police have used the demonstration regulations to protect the presidential office at the expense of civil rights to free speech. 

“Gwanghwamun Square is not within 100 meters from Cheong Wa Dae, but police still ban rallies there. Cheong Wa Dae should be open to the voice of protestors so that president can hear what they have to say. That’s what our Constitution stipulates,” Han told The Korea Herald. 

In 2003, Constitutional court ruled that prohibiting assemblies should be used as a last resort when there are no other options left. The court also added that the organizers’ choice of where to hold a rally should be respected, as the venue plays an important role in achieving a rally’s goals.