'Red or blue?' Man assaults taxi driver over political stance
A man in his 20s is under investigation for a drunken assault on a taxi driver after harassing the victim over who he voted for in the June 3 presidential election.
The suspect got in a cab driven by the victim on a road in Gangseo-gu, Busan, at around 5:40 a.m. on Sunday, severely intoxicated, according to the Gangseo Police Station. He asked the driver who he voted for in the election won by President Lee Jae-myung, to which the driver answered, "I don't know much about politics."
Despite the victim's protests, the suspect harassed him by shaking the headrest and asking, "Was it the red party or the blue party? It was blue, wasn't it — the Democratic Party?" Red is the color of the conservative People Power Party and blue represents Lee's liberal Democratic Party of Korea.
The driver got out of the car to report the case to the police, but the suspect followed and brutally assaulted him. The attack inflicted injuries on the victim and damage to the car.
Police arrested the suspect at around 6:15 a.m. the same day.
The suspect is charged with violence against a driver operating a motor vehicle, as stipulated in Article 5-10 of the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes. Assaulting the driver of a moving vehicle is punishable by up to five years in prison or a 20 million won ($14,717) fine, which is more severe than the maximum of two years in prison for ordinary assault due to the dangerous nature of the crime.
Korea's conservatives and liberals have become extremely divided, particularly in light of the recent impeachment of former President Yoon Suk Yeol, which led to the early election. The exit polls in the election indicated a severe ideological divide between generations, with men under 30 appearing to vote predominantly for the conservative candidates while President Lee appeared to garner only 24 percent from that group.
Lee received 49.42 percent of the vote overall.
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