SEOUL, South Korea—South Korea is seeing its biggest wave of street demonstrations in decades but nobody is sure how many people are taking to the streets each week.
For the fifth-straight weekend, masses of protesters are expected to occupy major avenues in downtown Seoul on Saturday demanding the ouster of President Park Geun-hye. She is suspected of helping in the criminal activities of a secretive confidante who is accused of manipulating government affairs and extorting companies to build an illicit fortune.
The rally is certain to renew what has become a weekly back-and-forth between police and protest organizers, whose crowd estimates have differed widely in the previous four Saturdays.
There are many challenges for counting the number of protesters. The rallies stretch from midday to late night — some people stay for several hours, others just several minutes. The demonstrators not only gather in open space but also small alleys and between buildings. Some of them are constantly moving.
Police: Measuring crowd at its peak
While the protest in Seoul on Nov. 12 might have been the largest since South Korea freed itself from dictatorship three decades ago, it’s unclear how big it actually was. Police saw the crowd at 260,000, while organizers say 1 million turned out.
For the police, the aim is to measure the maximum crowd occupying a certain space at any given time so that they could determine the size of police personnel and resources to deploy, according to an official from the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, who didn’t want to be named, citing office rules.
