SEOUL: Following a two-year break caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the LGBTQ community in South Korea has been granted conditional approval to resume an annual celebration in the centre of Seoul next month, July.

The city government said on Wednesday that organisers of the Seoul Queer Culture Festival have been granted permission to hold the annual event at Seoul Plaza for one day on July 16 on the condition that participants refrain from excessive body exposure, as well as selling or exhibiting harmful pornography prohibited under the Juvenile Protection Act.

According to news report, the conditional clearance by a private-public joint committee on the use of public plazas in Seoul came around two months after the organisers requested the festival be hosted for six days from July 12 to 17 at the plaza in the capital.

Though the festival will only last one day, organisers will be able to utilise the plaza beginning on July 15 in the afternoon to set up the stage and conduct other preparations, according to the administration.

Since 2000, the Seoul festival for LGBTQ people and their allies has been hosted in several neighbourhoods throughout the city, before shifting to Seoul Plaza in front of City Hall in 2015. The festival in Seoul Plaza ran until 2019, after which it was replaced with online events due to COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021. The most recent offline festival in 2019 attracted a record-breaking throng of almost 150,000 people.

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