S. Korea Will Bar Potential Protesters From Funeral

Justice Minister Kim Sung Ky announced Thursday that South Korean police will prevent politicians, students and others from attending a memorial service Saturday for a student who died under police interrogation.

Officials said that only Roman Catholic clergymen and members of the student’s immediate family will be permitted to pass through police lines to attend the service. The police in Seoul are to be placed on alert today until Sunday morning.

Kim issued his statement as opposition groups, led by the New Korea Democratic Party, issued a call for all citizens to make Saturday a day of mourning for Park Jong Chul, 21, a student at Seoul National University who died Jan. 14.

Disclosure of the incident led President Chun Doo Hwan to issue a public apology, to dismiss the minister of home affairs and the national police chief and to order the arrest of two policeman alleged to be responsible for Park’s death. Park is reported to have suffocated when his throat was jammed against the rim of a tub as he was being subjected to a form of water torture.

Sees Agitation Plot

Kim charged that “some politicians, subversive dissidents and student radicals are plotting to take advantage of Park’s death . . . to agitate and incite the public, thereby creating social unrest” with the ultimate aim of “overthrowing both the government and the present political system through violence.”

The opposition, he said, is trying “to throw society into severe chaos, undermine national security and . . . threaten the very survival of the nation.”

Kim Dae Jung and Kim Young Sam, co-chairmen of the Council for the Promotion of Democracy and the principal figures behind the New Korea Democratic Party, have said that the rites for Park will be nonpolitical and peaceful. Kim Dae Jung urged members of the council not to resist if the police block their way to the service but to stand still in the street “and pray for Park.”

They asked that people who are on the streets stop at 2 p.m. Saturday and offer a silent prayer, and they asked drivers to sound their horns.

The service, which is to take place in the Catholic cathedral in the Myongdong section of downtown Seoul, puts new emphasis on the effort to transform South Korea into a democracy by next year.

Divided on New System

With only a year left before Chun must step down as president, the former general’s ruling Democratic Justice Party and the opposition are at loggerheads over whether South Korea should adopt a presidential or a parliamentary system of government in choosing a new leader. The opposition is demanding a direct presidential election, but the ruling party insists on a parliamentary government, with a prime minister elected indirectly in the National Assembly.