NEW POLICE BUREAU PLAN SPARKS OUTRAGE

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Police officers are again up in arms against their leadership's decision. The police's intranet swarmed with complaints criticizing the leadership on Sunday. The leadership stresses the importance of a top-down command system. However, it appears that any disciplinary personnel decisions and inspections will unlikely silence the resistance among lower-level officers this time. Police officers are calling on the commissioner nominee to step down.

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Police rules state "Officers must obey duty-related orders." The public service law stresses compliance with orders, but the police is an organization that places extra emphasis on obedience. However, the police's intranet was full of messages denouncing the rule. "It looks hopeless," "Discipline me, too," "Ashamed of the leadership"...There were even calls for the police commissioner nominee Yoon Hee-keun to voluntarily resign. It seems that accumulated concerns and opposition are at boiling point due to the decision to punish officers directly protesting the interior ministry's police reform plan. Explicit disobedience like this is very unusual in the police, which emphasizes hierarchy as much as the military.

[Soundbite] Ryu Sam-young(Former Ulsan Jungbu Police Station Chief) : "New, young officers tend not to tolerate and accept injustices and illegal practices."

It is also controversial to decide on whether or not police officers holding a protesting meeting on a holiday are subject to punishment and inspections. The police's leadership views it as a collective action that undermines the discipline of the organization. But meeting attendees claim that it was a type of seminar held on a day off. Therefore, if the organizers of the meeting were to be disciplined, then that would likely cause disobedience and legal actions. It can also lead to greater, organization-wide protests if working-level officers lend support. Yoon Hee-keun has to undergo a parliamentary confirmation hearing soon, although the date is yet to be decided on. There are more hurdles for the police to overcome before resolving the unprecedented internal discord and conflict.