SEOUL, Nov. 15 (Yonhap) -- Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon was attacked by a 62-year-old woman Tuesday during a civil defense exercise in a subway station but was not hurt, witnesses said.
The woman, only identified by her last name Park, hit the mayor on the neck while the liberal mayor was watching a public demonstration of emergency equipment in the City Hall subway station at around 2:30 p.m., said city officials who attended the event.
The attacker suddenly stood up from her chair and beat the mayor, calling him a "commie," a derogatory term for a communist.
"We were not able to stop her because it happened all of a sudden," a city official said.
Park, a lawyer-turned-activist backed by opposition parties, was elected mayor in an October by-election. Former Mayor Oh Se-hoon quit in late August after failing to block the free lunch program in a city referendum.
Police have taken the woman into custody and are questioning her over the attack. Officials said they will request an arrest warrant for her on charges of assault and obstruction of duty.
It is not the first time the woman, known as a conservative activist, has attacked politicians.
In August, Park grabbed Rep. Chung Dong-young of the main opposition Democratic Party during a street rally in downtown Seoul that urged the government to cut expensive college tuition fees.
She was questioned by police but was not arrested at the time.
South Korea regularly conducts civil defense training and evacuation exercises as part of a nationwide program, as the two Koreas remain technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a cease-fire, not a formal peace treaty.
