Six people wanted for criminal investigations are hiding in the temple. 

I don't know the law well enough in Korea to comment on whether or not the police had the right to search him.

Korea: Buddhists set to protest against President Lee’s religious bias
The Hankyoreh, Aug 24, 2008

Buddhists who supported Lee’s presidential bid are becoming increasingly disillusioned by his discriminatory behavior

Seoul, South Korea -- Anger on the part of the country’s Buddhists over the lack of balance in the Lee Myung-bak administration’s approach to religion is becoming the biggest issue on the political landscape.

After finding his approval ratings in the teens, Lee was just beginning to reap the benefits of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names’ decision to reinstate its designations for Dokdo and Korea’s performance at the Beijing Olympics. Now he has been blind-sided by this issue.

The country’s Buddhist community is planning a large-scale protest for 2 p.m. on August 27 in Seoul Plaza under the title “Buddhist Believers Assembly Denouncing the Lee Myung-bak Administration’s Destruction of the Constitution and Religious Discrimination.” Buddhist leaders say they intend to put all the resources available to them into making it a big event and temples around the country have been told to encourage their members to participate.

Ven. Jigwan, the head of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism, the largest Buddhist denomination in Korea is also getting directly involved in the effort to mobilize monks and believers, publicly calling on them to come to Seoul.

Protest organizer Ven. Wonhak, a senior member of the Jogye Order, said at a press conference August 21 that he expects to see at least 20,000 Buddhists participate, including 10,000 monks. The event, then, could be larger than any other held beyond the regular confines of temple grounds, other than the street parade held yearly on Buddha’s birthday.

Unlike the country’s Protestants, who tend to be relatively dynamic in terms of character, the Buddhist community tends to be quiet and maintains their presence more in the mountains than in downtown urban areas, so the protest becomes a political event just for happening. Officials with the Jogye Order, the country’s largest Buddhist denomination, say the fact it is happening is evidence of how angry Korean Buddhists have become.

Specifically, Buddhist leaders cite how, while he was mayor of Seoul, President Lee offered the city to God in a public prayer, issued a statement on a video offering salutations to people participating in a prayer meeting in Busan at which participants prayed for the physical collapse of the country’s temples, and declared that the reconstruction of Cheonggyecheon was evidence of “God leading history.” These officials say they do not expect him to do the same in his role as president. Many Buddhists feel betrayed because they supported him in the presidential election.

Regionally, Buddhism is strongest in the Gyeongsang provinces, which, for the most part, happen to overlap with the area that has traditionally supported the ruling Grand National Party. Many Buddhist GNP supporters in North and South Gyeongsang Province voted for Lee despite their religious differences. They voted a Protestant elder into office, and now say they fail to see a president who transcends religion and serves the country as a whole.

With 11 million believers, Buddhism is Korea’s largest religion, but Buddhists have accounted for only 7.7 percent of Lee’s Cabinet appointments, 12.5 percent of his appointments to senior presidential secretary, and 4.8 percent of his other Blue House secretaries. Meanwhile, in the view of Buddhists, members of Lee’s Somang Church look like they have taken up all the important positions in government.

Furthermore the Buddhist community says Lee’s religious discrimination has reached dangerous proportions, so much in fact that it could cause national chaos.

“Most of the killing in the world originates in religious conflict,” said one monk. “The administration’s behavior could cause religious conflict.”

Jogye Order spokesperson Ven. Seungwon said that while he “hears the administration is working to correct the religious discrimination,” it “only gets worse.”

“The protests will spread to the provinces until the president promises to prevent future discrimination and carries out that promise,” said Ven. Seungwon.

The ball, as it were, is in the Lee administration’s court.

Police pressuring Buddhists to stay away from rally
The Hankyoreh, Aug 25, 2008

Local governments also involved in efforts to block protest against Lee administration’s religious bias

Seoul, South Korea -- With a pan-Buddhist rally to protest the religious bias of the Lee Myung-bak administration set to convene on Wednesday, police and the local government are putting heavy pressure on major temples and monks to refrain from participating.

The organizers of the rally warned that if the maneuvers against Buddhism were not stopped, it would mobilize all means to force responsibility upon the individuals involved.

Based on what the organizers and police said Sunday, Buyeo police chief Oh Eun-su invited five monks who were tending to local police to the police station on August 20 and made a statement to the effect that if a major rally were to convene in Seoul, it would block up traffic and young people might do radical things.

Oh also asked for the monks’ understanding. One participant said the chief told the monks that Korea National Police Agency commissioner Eo Cheong-soo was a graduate of Dongguk University, a Buddhist university, and his entire family was Buddhist, so he was not the kind of person to foster a religious bias in order to repress Buddhism.

Rally organizers said that in Incheon, the head of a local police department recently visited an area temple to coax the monks into staying home from the rally, saying that Commissioner Eo was doing a good job, and that in Yanggu, Gangwon Province, police visited the residence of some Buddhist nuns to ask them not to participate. They also said that not only police, but also local governments like Yeoju-gun in Gyeonggi Province recently called up local temples to look into cars and monks being mobilized for the rally.

Yun Nam-jin, the secretarial head of one Buddhist civic group, said police chiefs around the country were being mobilized to call in influential abbot monks to openly coax them against participating in the rally. He said that when local police make a move, monks at regional temples cannot help but feel pressure.

Venerable Jinhwa, the monk who chairs the standing executive committee organizing the rally, said national and local police and civil servants were continuing maneuvers to block monks from participating in the rally, and if [the police] did not stop, they would mobilize all means to force responsibility onto the relevant individuals.

About this, one police official said police do not have the power to coax monks into staying home from the rally. He said he understood the meetings were to set straight incorrect stories concerning the recent search of the car of Jogye Order chief executive Venerable Jigwan.

Korean President Lee to Apologize for 'Bias' Against Buddhists
Chosun Ilbo, Aug 26, 2008

Seoul, South Korea -- President Lee Myung-bak is to apologize to Buddhists over the government's apparent religious bias and instruct his administration to prevent a recurrence of incidents that inflamed the faithful.

This decision was prompted by plans for a Buddhist rally Wednesday to protest against the religious bias of the Lee administration.

A senior presidential official on Monday said Lee will “express regret over the latest series of government's actions that caused misunderstanding with Buddhists and instruct government agencies to rectify wrongs and prevent the recurrence of a similar incident."

The decision follows alleged attempts by several government agencies to privilege information about Christian churches over Buddhist temples.

Lee was apparently prompted to try and bring the situation under control under threat of the Buddhist rally. But Lee, a devout Protestant, is unlikely apologize to Buddhist circles directly or meet with Buddhist leaders.

Cheong Wa Dae is considering adding a clause to the Government Employees Act with a view to meeting Buddhists' demand for legislation on the prevention of religious bias.

But it will not accept Buddhist circles' demand for the dismissal of Police Commissioner Eo Cheong-soo and for immunity of anti-U.S. beef protesters who have been staging a sit-in on the compound of Jogye Temple.

Korean government cannot afford to alienate Buddhists
Chosun Ilbo, Aug 26, 2008

Seoul, South Korea -- A protest rally against alleged religious bias of the Lee Myung-bak administration was threatened for Wednesday, with Buddhists to gather at Seoul Plaza Wednesday afternoon to demand an open apology from President Lee and legislation against religious discrimination.

Buddhists have mobilized participants and instructed temples across the country to attend the rally. Significantly more monks and laypeople than took part in the July 4 Buddhist protest against the Lee administration, are expected to participate.

Elements of conflict have existed between Buddhism and the Lee administration since the government took power. The evangelical zeal of Lee, a Presbyterian, is well known; he provoked controversy as Seoul mayor when he dedicated the metropolis to God.

Buddhists began to entertain serious suspicions when they saw the lineup for the presidential office and Cabinet. A senior government official's imprudent remark -- "My dream is to evangelize all government ministries and offices" -- did little to dispel the suspicions.

And when the Seoul metropolitan area transportation information system Algoga (“find your way”), administered by the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs, omitted the names of major temples late in June, things reached boiling point.

If we look closely at each step, the administration is not without justification. The problem is that avoidable misunderstandings are being repeated. In early August when Buddhist anger came to the fore, the Education, Science and Technology Ministry's website, the Educational Geographical Information System, again omitted famous large temples.

Prime Minister Han Seung-soo issued a directive early in July asking ministries and agencies to take special caution not to invite misunderstandings from religious circles. Algoga and the information system were built by the same firm. With a little care, the error would not have happened again.

To make the matter worse, police, in the course of arresting Buddhist ringleaders in candlelight protests, searched the car of the Jogye Order leader, the Venerable Jigwan.

The attitude of the administration and the ruling party since Buddhists complained is inappropriate. Cheong Wa Dae staff and other officials have only paid lip service to the issue and senior ruling party officials have been busy visiting provincial temples in a bid to placate monks.

Some Buddhists even called for a rejection of their visits. It took until last week for the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to emerge as the official channel for dialogue with the Jogye Order. No wonder Buddhists have yet to be convinced of the administration's sincerity.

The protests won't cease until the government makes a sincere apology and comes up with measures to prevent such actions, Buddhists say. "We could continue protesting for the next five years," said one. Their suspicions of the government run so deep that a resolution of the conflict will be very difficult.

The burden for the Buddhist leadership must be great as well. The conflict could deteriorate into a religious rift or invite criticism that Buddhism fans social unrest. That is why Buddhists also need to reconsider demands that have nothing to do with religious bias, such as that leaders of illegal protests against U.S. beef imports should be struck off the wanted list.

The two sides have become like locomotives running at each other. But a sustained confrontation between the government and the religion that has the most followers in the country is desirable for no one. Buddhism and the administration should slow down, conduct frank dialogue and search for a compromise.

The administration should map out specific measures assuring the trust of Buddhists, and Buddhist leaders should look at the situation from a broader viewpoint, freeing themselves from the sense of victimhood. The public hope that Wednesday’s rally will mark not a renewal but an end to the conflict.

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The column was contributed by Chosun Ilbo in-house columnist Lee Seon-min.