A patrol car is parked next to central Seoul’s Gyeongbok Palace where more graffiti is covered up with tarps, Monday. Yonhap
More graffiti was found on the walls of Gyeongbok Palace in central Seoul on Sunday, just a day after graffiti appeared on the palace’s wall, police said Monday, suspecting the second act was a copycat crime of Saturday’s vandalism.
A suspect for the second graffiti turned himself in voluntarily later on Monday.
The second malicious act occurred before the Cultural Heritage Administration (CHA) had finished restoration work to clear away the earlier graffiti.
According to Jongno Police Station, a report was received at around 10:20 p.m. on Sunday that more graffiti had appeared on the western wall of Gyeongbok Palace.
The newly discovered graffiti, spanning 3 meters in width and 1.8 meters in height, featured both English and Korean text, revealing the name of a singer and the title of a music album.
The initial act of vandalism took place at around 2 a.m. early Saturday. That perpetrator had spraypainted graffiti spanning 44 meters, inscribing the words “free movie” in Korean and the name of an illegal streaming site on both sides of the palace’s western wall and the fence surrounding the National Palace Museum.
Officials from the Cultural Heritage Administration erase graffiti from the outer wall of Gyeongbok Palace in central Seoul, Sunday, a day after the initial act of vandalism took place. Yonhap
The police are still chasing suspects of the initial act of vandalism. They said there are two suspects being investigated for the first act, but it remains uncertain whether the suspect in the second incident had been involved in the first.
Amid the consecutive acts of vandalism, the CHA and the police are intensifying the number of patrols to address the situation.
Patrols have been increased in the areas around four palaces in central Seoul: Gyeongbok Palace, Changdeok Palace, Changgyeong Palace and Deoksu Palace. To boost security measures, 14 surveillance cameras are currently operational at nine locations outside Gyeongbok Palace’s outer wall, with plans to install over 20 additional cameras in the vicinity.
Approximately 20 experts from the National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage and the National Palace Museum, who specialize in preserving and treating cultural heritage, have been restoring the damaged outer wall using preservation and treatment equipment such as steam washers and laser equipment. The anticipated week-long restoration work is set to be extended due to the additional graffiti.
The CHA has declared a strong response to the vandalism, emphasizing the importance of protecting Gyeongbok Palace as a state-designated cultural heritage site under the Cultural Properties Protection Law.
This legislation prohibits any form of defacement of designated cultural heritage, and violators may be ordered to restore the site to its original state or cover related costs.