For Second Time This Month, a Politician Is Attacked in South Korea

A South Korean lawmaker was attacked in the head with a blunt object in Seoul on Thursday and taken to a hospital where she was being treated for injuries that were not life-threatening, according to her staff and physicians.

Bae Hyunjin, of the ruling People Power Party, is the second South Korean politician to be physically assaulted while in public in less than a month.

Yang Jaeyu, her secretary, said that the attacker approached her asking, “Are you the People Power Party lawmaker Bae Hyunjin?” twice before striking her with what he called a “rocklike object.”

Security camera footage shared by her office showed the assailant repeatedly hitting the lawmaker as she fell on her back and tried to resist the attack.

She was being treated at Soonchunhyang University Seoul Hospital, Han Dong-hoon, the leader of her party, told reporters Thursday night.

“This is something that should never have happened,” he said, “and the truth needs to come out, and the culprit needs to be brought to justice.”

Ms. Bae, 40, a former anchorwoman for South Korean broadcaster MBC, is in her first term as a lawmaker. She was elected in 2020. She briefly served as a spokeswoman for then-president-elect Yoon Suk Yeol after his election in 2022.

Physicians at the hospital where she was being treated told reporters that she was conscious when she arrived at the emergency room, and that she had suffered a laceration of about a centimeter on her head, with no significant bleeding or fractures.

The attacker was detained at the scene and being investigated by police, according to Yonhap, a South Korean news agency. The chief detective of the police station in Gangnam district, where the attack happened, could not be immediately reached.

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