The editorial quoted Lee Myung Bak as blustering at a meeting of Chongwadae for measures "Report to me where the money came from for the candles and who spearheaded the rally" when the candlelight rally was staged in south Korea in 2008 in protest against the import of American beef.

The ruling party and the conservative media hatched all sorts of plots and conducted a coloring operation, claiming that the rally was manipulated by some forces behind the scene and it was not unrelated to the north's propaganda and agitation, the editorial said, and went on:

Finally the court gave an answer to the question of whether there were actually forces behind the scene five years later.

The Seoul Central District Court ruled that the suit filed by the Lee regime against the leading members of the People's Measure Council against the Total Opening of south Korean Markets to American Beef, the Citizens Solidarity for Democratic Society, the Solidarity for Progress and relevant public organizations was lost. The regime "claimed damages to the police".

The editorial described the ruling as a right decision as the ruling itself amounted to admitting that the candlelight rally which the previous regime decried and insulted as the one spearheaded by a certain specified force was a protest action taken by an overwhelming majority of citizens on their own will.

At that time the security authorities indiscriminately suppressed even the mothers who took part in the rally with their babies on the baby carriages and this meant the beginning of the fall of the Lee regime, it added.

The editorial held that its fate would have been otherwise, had the Lee regime responded to the people's will instead of resorting to the anachronistic repressive rule.

The Park Geun Hye regime should draw a lesson from the recent decision because the present ruling quarters started a witch hunt after labeling the opposition parties, trade unions and civic and public organizations critical of them as "leftist forces following the north", it charged.

The future of the present authorities will be gloomy, too, if they persist in their acts of taking issue with the activities of the trade unions calling for clarifying the suspected election rigging and resorting to red herrings, warned the editorial.