Peace Group's Application For Booth Rejected By NoVA Korea Festival

ANNANDALE, VA — Organizers of an upcoming Korean festival in Northern Virginia rejected the vendor application of the D.C. chapter of Korea Peace Now! over a disagreement with the group's political positions, according to the peace group.

The Korea Peace Now! Grassroots Network D.C. chapter submitted an application for a booth at the KORUS Festival 2023, a community event managed by the Korean American Association of Greater Washington Metropolitan Area. The festival, in its 20th year, will take place in the K-Market parking lot in Annandale from Friday, Oct. 13 through Sunday, Oct. 15.

“KORUS Festival organizers rejected the Korea Peace Now! Grassroots Network vendor application, citing the political nature of our work,” the group wrote in a letter to the event organizers on Friday. “Yet you are allowing both Democratic and Republican groups to table at your event.”

Two years ago, members of the Korea Peace Now! Grassroots Network D.C. chapter attended the 2021 festival to hand out leaflets "without incident" and with many festival attendees signing up to learn more about the group’s efforts, the group said. This year, the group decided to apply to be a vendor at the festival.

“It seems that your stated reasons for rejecting our application are disingenuous and instead based on a difference in political beliefs,” Elizabeth Hyunsook Cho, coordinator of the group’s D.C. chapter, wrote in the letter, a copy of which was provided to local news media outlets.

"Freedom of speech is one of the guaranteed rights in this country, and I urge you to support freedom of expression in order to strengthen our democracy," Cho said. "I am calling on you to reverse your decision and allow the Korea Peace Now! Grassroots Network DC chapter to have a table at your event."

Steve Lee, president of the Korean American Association of Greater Washington, said in an email to Patch that the KORUS planning committee reviewed its festival vision and decided not to allow individuals "to engage visitors on their own views when visitors are at KORUS to enjoy and have fun."

Representatives from the local Democratic and Republican parties purchased booth space, Lee said, and "are both recognized and established groups" and "are not similar to the individuals of KoreaPeaceNow."

"Our officers and volunteers are working very hard to bring a festival to Annandale, where it originated 20 years ago," he said. "This event is being prepared by hours of volunteers as it itself is a financial loss project. Yet there are some people like Ms. Cho, who believe if she does not get what she wants, it is bad and should be criticized."

Korea Peace Now! has worked for years organizing in communities across the U.S. and lobbying members of Congress to try to change U.S. policy toward Korea.

The group has raised awareness in Congress about divided families who cannot see each other because of the U.S. ban on travel to North Korea implemented by the Trump administration in 2017 and has worked with organizations of Korean War veterans that seek engagement with the government of North Korea, so they can retrieve bodies of U.S. soldiers killed in the North during the Korean War from 1950 to 1953.

“We believe that the root cause of tensions and militarism on the Korean Peninsula is the unresolved state of the Korean War, which is why we advocate for replacing the armistice with a peace agreement through H.R.1369, the Peace on the Korean Peninsula Act,” Cho wrote in the letter.

The House bill, titled "Peace on the Korean Peninsula Act" and introduced by Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), has 35 co-sponsors in Congress.

“As a passionate supporter of peace in Korea, I believe that the Korean American Association of Greater Washington Metropolitan Area is doing a great disservice to the community by silencing the important work of this grassroots organization,” Cho wrote in the letter.

Cho, who has worked on organizing the KORUS Festival in previous years, said she will be boycotting the festival if the organizers do not reverse their decision. She also said she will tell others in her network about the festival's decision "to silence the important work of these Korea peace activists."

In response to the boycott threat, Lee said Cho "should allow others to have their own thoughts and not force it or make threats."

"She should find other venues for her own motives, but not at a festival where people come to enjoy and have fun," Lee said.