Fans hold sit down protest in Seoul. (Photo courtesy of daum.net and 2oneday)

Korean fans of K-pop boy group 2PM held a series of sit down protests in Seoul, South Korea, as part of their new campaign to pressure JYP Entertainment to bring back Park Jaebum, the former 2PM leader, who left the group in September last year.

There is a growing concern among the fans that JYPE will no longer bring back Jaebum and just focus on promoting the remaining six members of the boy band.

They are angry at JYPE’s head honcho, Park Jin-Young, for continuing to ignore their request.

The sentiment grew in congruence with the announcement last week that Sunmi of the Wonder Girls will leave the girl group by March. The fans said this action is directly connected with how JYPE is treating the issue involving Jaebum.

Nationwide and massive protests were originally scheduled to be held last Jan. 31, but fans decided to cancel it and instead just hold small gatherings.

Last Jan. 31, about 90 fans gathered in Daegu and Cheongju in Seoul to hold sit down protests.

Some of them went to Dongsungro and handed fliers to passersby, according to a translated article on 2PM/2AM fan forum 2oneday.

“For 2 hours, we sat there in our silent protest while our staff walked around with the fliers. We also picked up the garbage around the area,” according to the 2oneday account of one of the protesters. 

In addition, about 200 fans picketed in front of the JYPE building in Cheongdam, Seoul, to make known their strong disapproval of JYPE’s recent actions on the Jaebum issue.

They accused JYPE of just toying with their request to bring back Jaebum.

Jaebum was forced to quit 2PM in September after his “anti-Korea” comments posted on his MySpace account before his debut were revealed to the public.