Criticism of President Moon's COVID-19 Response Impeachment 청원
"Like the Chinese President... The Most Important Thing Is Protecting Our Citizens"
청와대 Must Officially Respond Within a Month
President Moon Jae-in is attending a meeting with local market vendors and small business owners at Dongdaegu Station in Daegu on the 25th. [Image source=Yonhap News]
[Asia Economy Reporter Han Seung-gon] The number of signatories to a Blue House national petition calling for the impeachment of President Moon Jae-in, criticizing the government's response to the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), surpassed 1 million on the 27th.
The petition titled "We urge the impeachment of President Moon Jae-in," posted on the Blue House national petition board on the 4th, had received 1,001,961 signatures as of 12:30 PM on the same day. Accordingly, the Blue House will issue an official response within one month starting from the petition's closing date on the 5th of next month.
The petition exceeded the Blue House's response threshold of 200,000 signatures on the 25th, just 21 days after posting. It then surpassed 800,000 signatures on the 26th and broke through 1 million on the 27th.
As of this date, only two petitions have received more signatures in history: the petition for the dissolution of the Liberty Korea Party (now the United Future Party) posted in April last year (1,831,900 signatures), and the petition posted in October 2018 requesting that the suspect in the Gangseo-gu PC room murder case not receive a reduced sentence due to diminished mental capacity (1,192,049 signatures).
The petitioner who posted the impeachment petition stated, "The more I see President Moon's response to this COVID-19 situation, the more it feels like watching the president of China rather than the president of the Republic of Korea," and claimed, "Despite the domestic mask shortage, President Moon supported China with 3 million masks and took no measures against the soaring mask prices."
Regarding the government's decision to ban entry of foreigners who visited Hubei Province, the origin of COVID-19, the petitioner criticized, "They talked about international law, but after countries worldwide imposed entry bans, they only now came up with this measure as if playing a waiting game."
They added, "More than 5 million Chinese people had already left Wuhan just before the lockdown, so restricting entry only for foreigners who visited Hubei Province is equivalent to allowing all Chinese people to freely enter and exit Korea."
They further stated, "The most important duty of the president of the Republic of Korea is to protect the citizens. If they cared about their citizens, they should have banned entry from all regions of China," and "Our country is only putting out superficial measures and no substantial ones."
Meanwhile, a petition calling for President Moon's impeachment for allegedly neglecting and condoning North Korea's nuclear development was posted on the Blue House national petition board last April and met the response criteria.
At that time, the Blue House responded, saying, "Due to the principle of separation of powers, it is difficult for the government to respond to this petition," but also stated, "We have been tirelessly working to build a country worthy of its name according to the people's mandate, and we are determined to do better."
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